The Weekly Muse from Love 2B Homeschoolers

The Friday Five

2011-06-03T15:30:00.010-04:00

1. Which song or musical artist always reminds you of a specific person you know?
Missing by Everything But The Girl reminds me of my friend Stephen who passed away from AIDS related complications on September 9th, 1996.

2. Which song or artist is your guilty pleasure?
This is a tough one for me since I don't feel guilty about anything I listen to. I've surprised people along the way, but never feel embarrassed to admit I listen to anything I do.

3. There was once a time when every TV show had a theme song. Which is your favorite?
The Addams Family (yeah, I'm old)

4. Which song can you absolutely not stand?
Celebration by Kool and the Gang. I told the DJ at my wedding that I wouldn't pay him if he played it. Seemed like it was played at every wedding I went to for a while.

5. What is your personal theme song?
Loving Kindness by Karen Drucker

10 Things That Were Better “Way Back When”

2010-07-28T00:38:00.001-04:00

[Originally posted in February 2008. Bumped by request in comments.]

Thought I'd give this meme a try. It's been interesting to think about. It's amazing how I am so ensconced in my role as mother, that even a simple list that might start out elsewhere leads to my children and why I homeschool...

1. Way back when, people used to know how to live within their means.

So many people I know are struggling to make ends meet. Someone I know lives in a house rent free with no mortgage, and Mom still has to work. I just don't get it; why don't people know how to budget themselves anymore? And why to people walk around with this sense of entitlement?

I think the baby boomers are screwing it all up for the rest of us. They are gliding into retirement without a care in the world, while the rest of us are trying to keep up. Everyone is all about the "stuff". My generation, "Generation X", is going to be in serious trouble down the line. Not many people are putting enough money away for retirement, and after the boomers are done, social security will probably be non-existent. So "Generation Y" will not only have lots of stuff, and no idea how to pay for it, they'll also have aging family members to support.

2. Way back when, people didn't waste food the way they do now.

That probably somehow relates back to #1, when we lived within our means.

3. Way back when, we didn't have to worry about genetically modified foods or eating cloned animals.

Or at least back then, we would have been appropriately grossed out by the idea.

4. Way back when, there were very few fat people around.

I remember when I was little when we saw a fat person it was a really big deal. We'd notice how it was so unusual. Then microwaves became readily available, and so did lots of processed food. We were also told to avoid fat, and in doing so, ended up overdosing on carbohydrates. So here we are with an epidemic of diabetes on our hands, and people who don't cook anymore. We just heat things up.

5. Way back when, kids had free time after school.

My kids don't even know what it means to go "call for" a friend. There's no need to, when nobody would answer anyway.

6. Way back when, there was no such thing as ADD or ADHD.

Kids were just kids, and boys were given time to play out in the playground when they needed it. Their energy was respected as something that was needed for the future. But back then, teachers were being accused of only calling on the boys, and favoring them, and blah, blah, blah. Now we have a classic case of backlash, and boys all over the country are on drugs for not being able to sit still for abnormal amounts of time. Which leads me to...

7. Way back when, girls didn't behave as if they were the superior sex.

I mean, what's up with shirts that say "Princess" and all the other stupid and mean sayings these days? Of course I would never want to go backwards, but how about a little humility ladies? We are not the supreme intelligent life on the planet any more than the men are. Girls are getting so snooty and downright conceited, just by virtue of being a girl.

Recently I read The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, and it really enlightened me as to how obnoxious we've become. I'm not usually a fan of the super conservative Dr. Laura, but what she says in this book really makes sense:

...what is the cause of this self-centeredness? I believe it's a result of the women's movement, with its condemnation of just about everything male as evil, stupid, and oppressive...The result is women get married thinking largely about what their marriage and man can do for them, and not what they an do for their men...

This book is filled with tidbits about how women think of ourselves as superior, and ridicule and micro-manage our husbands. And it all starts with the teenagers and the "Princess" shirts.

Princesses, get over yourselves.

8. Way back when, people protected their kids from violence on TV.

And now we can add gaming systems to the mix. Man, even the commercials for these things are over the top. And many people are totally ignoring the age recommendations on them. Are people clueless? Do they not care? Or perhaps they simply don't want to argue with their kids. Which leads me to...

9. Way back when, parents taught their children self-discipline.

Kids get away with so much today. Many of them are rude and demanding. What happened to parents expecting their children to behave nicely? Why do they let their kids boss them around? I've seen preschoolers at playgroups over the years kick their mothers, who then respond with "Oh, don't do that, it's not nice", and send them off to play. When that was my kid, we left playgroup and went home.

10. Way back when, people were nice.

This statement was pulled from a comment someone left on a post I made a while back: "Not everyone deserves respect. The lady that grills my child about what he/she knows might deserve a blunt response that wouldn't be considered respectful by mainstream America."

My response was this: "...when the word respect is defined as 'courteous regard for people's feelings', yes, I expect my children to show respect for all people, same as I do. Even to 'the lady that grills my child about what he/she knows'. A blunt response might be where I end up, but hopefully never where I start."

I have to admit I don't have much respect for "mainstream America" anyway.

The Shadow Effect DVD Review

2009-10-04T22:34:00.007-04:00

So I agreed to write a review in exchange for getting a free copy of this DVD. Unfortunately it arrived at a time when a lot was happening in my life (like my husband having to go through chemotherapy and me landing in the hospital for a couple of nights with alarmingly high blood pressure) so I was a little busy wallowing in self-pity to actually get to it for a while.

Once I did, I tried to watch it with a critical eye, knowing that I would be writing this review, but after a while I decided to just fall into it and watch it as a plain old viewer. I figured I go back and watch it again to be able to critique it more closely, but the problem has been that I simply don't want to. I can't get myself to watch the darn thing again.

I had hoped that The Shadow Effect would be as convincing as The Secret, which I have devoured several times. And during the first 30 minutes, I thought that perhaps it would be. The premise is a good one: we all have “undesirable” sides (our “shadows”) that prevent us from living to our full potential, and we become better people if we learn to embrace those sides of ourselves, forgive ourselves for having them, and try to incorporate them into our lives as a piece of who we are, instead of keeping them buried and hidden away. I especially liked the visual metaphor of trying to hold a bunch of beach balls under water, but eventually running out of energy and having them fly up out of the water in a mad rush.

I have been on a journey to become a more mindful being, and have already uncovered some of my darker sides through other venues. So this information was not new to me, and I felt comfortable acknowledging its reality. Also, the idea that what bothers us most in others being what we hate most in ourselves, was not news. But I can see how this information, this learning about how we all have these “shadows”, could be enlightening for some viewers who may not have explored that side of themselves previously, although I have to believe that most of those who would watch this video to begin with, would likely already be working on learning from their past and incorporating forgiveness into their lives.

But after that enlightenment, it wall went downhill. Yeah, the part about the surviving concentration camp prisoner forgiving the woman who was a Nazi at the time, was very inspirational, but forgiving our enemies is not really the same thing as embracing our dark side. And let's face it, it probably would have been impossible for that Nazi woman to forgive herself if she didn't have a surviving prisoner around to tell her to.

The biggest issue I had with this DVD though is that it points out what's wrong with me, tells me to fix it, and ends. Want to learn how to fix yourself? Buy the next DVD!

In the meantime, the DVD does actually continue by talking about how we all need to take responsibility for the negative energy in the world, and starts getting into politics; pointing out what and who the producers think is wrong in this world, and telling us who we should be inspired by to help fix it. What the heck? Don't you think I feel crappy enough about not knowing how to embrace and incorporate my own issues without taking on the world's? It's a self-help video...I am watching it to help MYSELF.

At this point, I have to admit, I started getting petty. Debbie Ford's Botox lips started to really grate on my nerves. What can I say, I have a hard time accepting self-help advice from someone who is vain enough to do that to themselves. It's a pet-peeve of mine that I take full ownership of, but those lips really did start to get in my way. (Debbie, if they're not botoxed, I give you permission to go ahead and spend the money to get them fixed so they don't look like they are.)

The production also started really annoying me. The dramatic music was so obvious, as was the use of lighting to create giant shadows behind people who were still struggling, while Debbie and the others who were apparently enlightened were shadow-free behind them.

I also can't forget to mention that I thought it was kind of bizarre to have a member of the band Earth, Wind & Fire as a speaker along with all the New Age folks; definitely noticeably out of place.

Once the thing ended I felt pretty gypped. I would rather have read a magazine article about it all in Prevention; at least that would've given me a bulleted list of concrete things to try to better myself.

But wait! There are bonus materials! Surely they will have some information on things I can do for just that!

But wait! The bonus materials are previews of the interactive version of this movie! And I can buy that version for only $15! So basically, this “free” DVD is a big infomercial to get me to buy the real one. Pretty frustrating, considering that I am paying for the original one with this review.

I want my time back.

Haiku

2009-08-05T00:08:00.001-04:00

Motherhood is hard
The boredom can overwhelm
But they are worth it

The Friday Five

2009-07-17T23:36:00.003-04:00

1. It's the last night of the world, and you've only just found out. What five things will you do in these final hours?
Wake my family up and tell them I can't sleep and need them to all sleep with me in my bed. Then I'd watch them all doze off, and stay awake just looking at them as they sleep. I'd try to go to sleep too, so I could go peacefully.

2. How do you feel about our American Flag's design?
I'd prefer something a little more elegant and simple, but I appreciate that the stars and stripes actually represent things.

3. What pets have you had?

Family dog when I was younger: Brutus. Really my brothers’.
Had a canary named Roger (named for Roger Waters of Pink Floyd). We sang so exquisitely together when I got home from school every day (grammar school). I'd never have a bird in a cage now.
Hamster named Hammy Davis Jr.
Dog named Thor who was mine but got to be too much of a handful for a selfish girl in college.
Fish.
Hermit Crabs.
Currently have a puppy dog named Luna, who we've had for two weeks.

4. What was the last activity you wore a wristband for?
Being a chaperon for the classes my children were taking at The Beardsley Zoo. Needed the band to get in for free.

5. What song changed your life?

I heard it on WNYU (New York University's station) in 1981 in my bedroom in the basement. Antenna wire was taped all over my walls and onto the ceiling so I could get this station. It's a song that made me fall in love with New Wave and defined me for the next decade.

Haiku

2009-07-16T23:29:00.000-04:00

No school bus for us
Homeschoolers get to sleep late
We are more relaxed

YouTube Tuesday

2009-07-14T20:13:00.004-04:00

Interesting Facts About Mosquitos (2:00)

Prescription Drugs For Long Eyelashes

2009-07-12T22:58:00.001-04:00

Is anyone else disturbed by this new drug called Latisse? I've seen the commercial for it, it makes your eyelashes longer. A prescription. To make your eyelashes longer.

The drug was originally used for glaucoma and one of the side effects for those patients was longer eyelashes, so naturally they had to start selling it just for that. There are other side effects for this drug too...

“...frequent complaints of glaucoma patients included temporarily red eyes, itching and darker eyelid skin. But in a few glaucoma patients who used eyedrops containing a prostaglandin, he said, green or hazel irises permanently turned darker after 6 to 12 months of treatment.”

In reading the article I did when looking for the side-effects, I also came across this, which really struck me...

“Latisse might have more value to Allergan as a gateway drug that brings new patients to cosmetic medicine and leads them to try Botox.”

Unreal.

What is probably even more galling to me than the existence of this stuff, is that Brooke Shields is the one who's doing the commercials.

I always had real respect for her. But I can't believe she needs the money this bad. Accepting this job has changed what I think of her, and likely many women out there. Bad move, Brooke.

Haiku

2009-07-08T23:35:00.002-04:00

Rocks water sand dirt
Homeschooling is magical
I always see sky

YouTube Tuesday

2009-06-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

The power of one person (3:06)

The Friday Five

2009-06-19T00:00:00.000-04:00

1. What do you feel is the most important quality in a close friend?
Accept me as I am, and don't even so much as privately wish I were different. Because it just ends up coming out.

2. What is the one quality in a stranger you'd just met that would make you want to get to know them better?
Someone who is engaging.

3. What do you think is the most important quality in a good leader?
Hearing what others have to say. Not just listening. Hearing.

4. What is the one thing that makes a child likable to you?
All children are likable to me. Except maybe one or two. And that really has to do with parenting, and not the kids.

5. What do you think is the one thing that makes a good parent (other than loving their children)?
Engaging with children and not living as if they are property.

My experience in a Christian support group

2009-06-17T00:01:00.000-04:00

Yeah, it still surprises even me that I can write that as a blog title.

I was tired of driving so far for my kids to play with other kids. It really annoyed me that "friends" in our homeschool group would not venture out more than 15 minutes away; that we are always the ones who had to travel the 30 minutes to them. It was frustrating that the group founder would not change the day of playgroup to accommodate us despite the fact that we were one of the four families that always showed up and that we had been part of the group from the start, and instead accepted our absence (to participate in a preexisting co-op) with seeming indifference.

The co-op was too good to not try so we were basically friendless again. Then I read about a support group that met on Fridays (a day we could go) just 15 minutes away! I immediately emailed the woman who posted the info to the statewide yahoo group, and we corresponded a few times until finally I wrote:

"I was raised Catholic, but no longer practice. So we'd prefer a group which does not gather based on a shared faith", and was replied to with this: "I'm sorry C, the St. Anthony group is probably not the group for you. You are welcome to join us at New Life Church as we are not affiliated with any particular religion."

At this point I realize I was wrong in assuming that she meant the group was secular, but perhaps she could have done a better good job conveying that although they were not affiliated with any particular religion, they were in fact, all Christian, and did actually "gather based on a shared faith". But back then I had no idea what I was getting into.

The first day we arrived at the church my kids were thrilled to find at least 50 other kids. They were having a sports day with games, and both boys, although shy that first day, did have a good time and wanted to go back. But I should've known something was up when a woman who was directing the children just about hyperventilated when I wouldn't tell her my last name because I prefer everyone call me by my first. And I guess the prayer at the end of the meeting was a good indication of what was to come, as well.

The boys and I talked it over and decided we could be respectful of their prayers without having to believe in what we were doing, and participated in a hay ride with our new friends the next week. It was then that the boys started clicking with a couple of others. So I paid my $20 membership fee and hoped for the best.

Then along came First Lego League. My 11-year-old got an invitation to participate in it with some people we had met through some nature classes and we jumped on it; FLL is something I had really wanted to get him involved with, but didn't know how. Unfortunately though, it meant missing several Fridays of our new playgroup until after the tournament. I wrote to the president of the group and let her know, but didn't hear back from her.

I received an email explaining all the activities that were planned for over the next few months. There were a couple of things I didn't want my kids to participate in though. One was current events, since I was concerned about the context in which it would be presented, and the other was Keepers of the Faith. This is an excerpt of how it was explained in a separate email:

The purpose of the program is to:

Build character in their children
Teach practical skills
Rear children who walk with Christ
Establish lasting family ties
Strengthen their home school curriculum
Create true quality time with their children
Make the Scriptures a real part of their children’s lives
Teach children how to serve others

We, as a homeschool group, are utilizing this program, and the structure it provides, to teach our children many different things. In a way, it is similar to the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, in that as the child is taught and shows competency in different skills or areas of knowledge, and various requirements are met, they are able to earn a badge as an award for their work. The "badges" are actually metal pins (no sewing, Mom) that can be clasped to a sash, banner, or hat - very nice looking and of an excellent quality. Last year the kids made personalized banners to mount their growing collections.

But what really got me is this part:

Each boy will need "the Contenders for the Faith handbook for boys, ages 7 through 14, to equip them to become godly men and competent providers for their future families. The handbook is unquestionably an excellent skill-builder. The boys will learn how to handle finances, do home maintenance, and develop skills in leadership. Plus, extensive Bible reading, memory work, and Bible study are included to aid them in developing good habits in their own walk with God. Whether your son is a member of a club or uses it as part of his home education, it is an absolute Christian character-builder!"

Each girl will need "the Keepers at Home handbook for young ladies which is perfect for girls 7 through 16. The handbook is crammed full of information to teach and prepare girls to become godly, competent keepers of the home, Christian wives, and mothers. It not only includes extensive skills for practical living and creative handiwork, but provides for spiritual growth as well with a variety of Bible reading and memory work, and even a study on Proverbs 31. Whether your daughter is a member of a club or uses it as part of her home education, it is an absolute character-builder! No future homemaker should be without it!"

This is when I realized that this group was not a good fit for us, and we wouldn't be returning after First Lego League was done. Then I got this email:

Due to the phenomenal growth in [our group] this year, a decision has been made to close membership. Anyone inquiring about membership from now on will be placed on a waiting list. Further, everyone currently involved with FAITH needs to realize that membership requires a commitment to attend most activities and meetings. It is understood that everyone will miss some events but this is not a group where attendance is on an "as convenient" schedule. If you can not attend regularly, you may be placed on the waiting list until such time as your schedule permits regular attendance. This will allow those who are prepared to commit to the group to be active and allow those with schedule conflicts to complete their other activities.

This was good news because it meant I could get my 20 bucks back!

I have to say that there is definitely a part of me that is saddened by the fact that Christian homeschoolers segregate themselves, but I suppose it becomes necessary, as their religion is such a huge part of who they are that it oozes into every aspect of their being. (Kind of like a fag I was friends with back in NY; he oozed his sexuality to the point that I didn't even want to be with him anymore.)

These folks are such truly nice people, and there are some of us out here on the outside of the bubble who try to put that out there, but can't find enough people to reflect it back. It's so unfortunate that many Christians are incapable of bringing their goodness to others without bringing their god into it. Some of us appreciate the intrinsic value of being good, and don't feel religion should be part of that; be good just to be good.

I will miss this group immensely, but learned a lot from this experience. The most important thing is for us to stay true to who we are.

And keep looking for the goodness in secular groups.

YouTube Tuesday

2009-06-16T11:49:00.001-04:00

Post-it Stop Motion (1:54)

My anti-war kid

2009-06-11T17:43:00.000-04:00

“Mom, how come if you kill someone here it's called murder, but if you kill someone in another country they call you a hero?”

YouTube Tuesday

2009-06-09T10:06:00.005-04:00

Diagnosis: Homeschooler (1:00)

YouTube Tuesday

2009-05-26T10:36:00.002-04:00

Pizza Boxes of the Future (:44)

YouTube Tuesday

2009-03-31T17:40:00.000-04:00

How my family eats, and why (7:14)

10 Things I Won’t Miss About Winter

2009-03-10T19:26:00.001-04:00

1. Snow
2. Mud
3. Cold
4. Bare trees
5. Buried flowers
6. Dressing in layers
7. Dry skin
8. Dry snots
9. Closed windows and doors
10. “Mostly cloudy” forecasts

Why Homeschool?

2009-01-07T00:46:00.004-05:00

“The school system in this country—public and private—is designed for the industrial age. We’re in a technological age. We don’t want our kids to memorize. We want them to learn.”
...............Jada Pinkett Smith

YouTube Tuesday

2008-12-09T09:15:00.000-05:00

I once got an ice-cream maker. (4:45)

Cheech and Chong

2008-11-07T11:19:00.003-05:00

We are going to see these guys tonight. Woo hoo!

YouTube Tuesday

2008-09-30T23:14:00.000-04:00

We can learn from this, or get frustrated by it. (4:09)

Overheard in New York

2008-06-26T19:07:00.004-04:00

Every week I get some great quotes emailed to me. Here is one I just got which made me laugh out loud:

Mom, yelling at six-year-old son playing with several magazines:
Eric, let's go now!

Eric:
But Mom, I want one!

Mom:
For Christ's sake! Just take one and let's go.

(Eric takes Gay Life)

Mom:
Your father is going to kill you.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-06-24T20:51:00.000-04:00

It's all about the shadows (2:40)

YouTube Tuesday

2008-06-17T22:16:00.000-04:00

Why Homeschool? (2:13)

The Friday Five

2008-06-13T18:32:00.001-04:00

I didn't like the questions for this week, so I went back a few weeks to before I started doing this to find some that are better. These questions are actually thought provoking...

1. If you became ruler of the world, what three things would you do first?
1. Find good staff to work for and advise me.
2. Set about finding a way to make sure no one goes hungry and everyone receives good health care, and everyone lives war-free.
3. Remove religion entirely from all governments.

2. If you were a superhero, what would be your name and what powers would you have?
My name would be Subtlety and I would be able to bend people to my will with my mind.

3. You can ask one question to someone who knows EVERYTHING. What is it?
How do I cure my kids' enuresis?

4. If you were invisible for a day, what would you do?
Spy on my kids to see how they treat each other when I'm not around.

5. If you saw a mythical/religious deity walking down the street, what would you do?
Ask them how their ego could let this mess of dogma get so far.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-06-10T00:00:00.002-04:00

What are you holding next to your brain? (00:45)

Acknowledge the correlation.

The Friday Five

2008-06-06T20:41:00.002-04:00

1. If you could participate in one Olympic event what would it be and why?
If I were in excellent shape and was capable of competing in one Olympic event I would choose snowboarding half pipe. It's just cool.

2. What is the one song you always sing along to?
I have to choose just one? There are too many to choose from, but one I always love hearing is Dream Weaver by Gary Wright.

3. Do you wear a seatbelt in the car?
Yes, I am a law-abiding citizen.

4. Car, SUV or truck, and why?
Minivan. Because I have kids and need the room.

5. Are you a good/bad drive? Explain.
I get you where you want to go quickly and safely.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-06-03T01:56:00.002-04:00

Sungha Jung. (3:36)

Learn more about this talented young man here.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-05-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

Music using only sounds from Windows XP and 98. (2:29)

The Friday Five

2008-05-23T15:26:00.001-04:00

1. What were some of the smells and tastes of your childhood?
Until I was 12, we lived in an apartment where the entrance was behind a deli; I remember the smell of baked shells. I remember the smell of all the grapes growing on the vines in the backyard of that apartment (yes, there was a backyard). My great-grandmother used to come and pick them with us. Once my parents got divorced and we moved into my grandmother's house, the smell of my Uncle E's Ivory Soap in the bathroom after he took a bath every night, is still something I vividly remember.

Tastes? Something I actually remembered a couple of weeks ago as my younger son asked me how we'd celebrate our birthdays in school, was Fudgetown Cookies. I couldn't find a photo of the box as it existed when I ate them, but least you can see what the cookies themselves looked like. They were scalloped shaped chocolate cookies with fudge in the middle. Yum!

Here's a cel from a commercial showing the characters they used to advertise them on TV. I can actually remember them!

In the box there were four packages of six cookies, and I'd give out two to each child in my class on my birthday (back in the day when we could still do that). They were great!

Another taste that I remember is a Marathon Bar; an eight inch long braided caramel bar coated in milk chocolate. I wish I could find a photo of what the candy bar itself looked like. Apparently there are some curly candies out there which are supposed to be similar, but the packaging, complete with the ruler on the back to emphasize its large size, was definitely part of the experience.

2. What did you have as a child that you do not think children today have?
Time for free play outside; a neighborhood of friends to call for. I also had a longer time to be a child. People don't protect their children from maturing too early these days. I played with Barbie Dolls till 8th grade. That's 12 years old. Know any 12-year-olds playing with Barbies now? (Barbie has such a giant head and big lips now anyway, who would want to bother?)

3. What elementary grade was your favorite?
Second grade, Sister Mary, St. Luke's School, Whitestone, NY. She was so wonderful I even invited her to my birthday party. She dropped a present off but didn't stay. She was so gentle and kind and I adored her. Otherwise elementary school was filled with cliques and I didn't belong. I was happy to get out.

4. What summer do you remember the best as a child?
My summers from my childhood (before my teens) are all a blur. I guess because they were pretty much all the same. My grandparents had a house on a lake in Maine, and they built another house across the road from it (we still to this day, refer to it as the "back house"). We'd go up for a few weeks every summer. Eventually my parents bought a little summer cottage on a pond in the same area, and once divorced my mother managed to hang on to it. Every single summer my mother packed us all up and we went to Maine the day after school ended in June. And we returned home to NY the day before school started the following September.

Although as an adult I can appreciate that my mother wanted to get my out of "the city" for the summer, the fact is, I was really lonely. We saw my mother's extended family there, but I didn't have any contemporaries. I am the oldest of my generation in my extended family. After me comes my brother and a slew of boys. The girl closest in age to me is nine years younger than me. There were no girls in our area on the pond either.

I was such a bookworm at the time. And I can remember my mother telling me to go outside and play. I remember thinking "doing what, and with whom? Most parents would be thrilled to have a child who reads all the time, what's the problem?" Thank goodness for my books; they kept me sane. I can look back in my diaries today and check the lists of books I read all summer. Someday maybe I'll drag one out and post it here.

I will say that however lonely I was for girls my own age, I did at all times feel very loved. When I think back to those days, especially in my grandparents' back house before my parents' divorce, I feel warm inside. I felt safe and secure and loved.

5. What one piece of advice would you give to your younger self, and at what age?
Don't read Emese's journal.

At age 14 my best friend Emese (pronounced Emma-shay) got her first real boyfriend, where making out was actually part of their regular activities. I kept asking her questions about what it was like. And she'd tell me she wished she could tell, but Jack (I think that was his name) told her not to tell me anything. So one day I said "well, what if I take your journal and read it, so this way you wouldn't have technically told me anything". And she replied "I guess that would be true!". Except that then she got all pissed off at me when I actually did it. We had been friends for nine years. She was my best friend all through elementary school. And she threw it all away on a stupid boy.

I suppose I did too. I threw it all away because of jealousy over a stupid boy. So now I'd tell myself "mind your own business." I so wish that at some point Emese would have forgiven me. I mean, she did tell me I could read the darn thing; I wouldn't have done it if I didn't feel she was okay with it. But when my parents divorced we moved a few blocks away, and we went to different high schools, so we never saw each other.

In the long run, I suppose it was meant to be. Everything happens for a reason. Would I be the same person I am today if she were still in my life?

Review of the Titanic Exhibit

2008-05-22T00:00:00.002-04:00

Yesterday my 11-year-old son and I went to see the Titanic exhibit at the Hartford Civic Center. I couldn't find much online about the exhibit. The page on the Civic Center website is pretty "unappetizing" and I was concerned that it'd be a rip-off. But once we went, we found it was well worth it.

When we got there, we were handed two "boarding passes" and were told that we should look at the wall at the end of the exhibit to see whether we survive or not. We went ahead and purchased two audio tours and headed in. (The audio tours were of the wand-type, and could easily be shared between two or three people. They were $7 each.)

The first "room" was set up to suggest the docking area. Here we saw artifacts having to do with the outside of the boat, including the only piece of rope they have been able to retrieve. They also had big murals depicting people planning and building it.

So we stepped up on board and entered a hall which was set up like the hall would have been in first class, with doors and beautiful carpeting leading the way down to the next area. They had great sound effects too, with what sounded like a crowd cheering the ship off. The hall led to an open area with dozens of artifacts depicting what traveling in first class would've been like. It was fun to read about Margaret Brown who we knew about from the movie The Unsinkable Molly Brown. And as students of "Titanicology", we really, really loved seeing all the genuine artifacts that they pulled out of the water.

Next was another hall which depicted third class. We saw a tiny room with two bunk beds in it, and got to hear what it would've sounded like down in the bowels of the ship, so near the motor. After that was one of the boiler rooms. They had a huge chunk of coal which they had retrieved from the site, and rows of furnaces where the coal was inserted (this was actually ingeniously presented with a short row elongated with mirrors). This is the room where the exhibit began to present information about the crash. On the end of it was a "wall of ice" which people were invited to touch, and thereby understand that most people died from hypothermia rather than drowning. (I had to swipe this photo off Google Images, since I actually adhered to the no picture-taking rule.)

The room we arrived in next started the focus on the retrieval efforts; a bunch of items in cases were in the middle of the room, and along the walls were those same items in photographs as they were found at the site of the wreckage. Finally we learned about the people on the ship. Along the walls were written the stories of various passengers, and below each story were artifacts connected to that person. It was really fascinating. They actually had vials of perfume from someone going to the U.S. to sell them, and holes in the exhibit so we could smell them!

Also in the last room were a couple of large panels telling stories of people specifically connected to Connecticut, and of course, the large wall where we could take out our "boarding passes" to find out if we survived.

It took us about two and a half hours to walk through, and we were really sad when it was over. Since they did not allow photographs, I was really disappointed not to find postcards in the gift shop. (Why doesn't anyone sell postcards anymore?) All they had was a book about the exhibit for 15 bucks. I just wanted a few photos so I passed and bought myself a pencil. My son was thrilled when I treated him to a piece of coal from the ship, which even comes with a certificate of authenticity. It was 20 dollars for a piece the size of a marble, but totally worth my boy's excitement at owning something which was actually on the Titanic.

I have to say that this exhibit was phenomenal. It was so well conceived and executed, and truly involved all the senses, which helped make it so memorable. It brought the story alive in a way that all the DVD's and books have only done in a way that we now realize was superficial.

If you are fans of the Titanic, I'd highly recommend it.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-05-20T21:53:00.001-04:00

Performance art is so cool. (2:15)

The Friday Five

2008-05-16T20:53:00.004-04:00

1. What's your favourite TV network?
Well, we don't currently have broadcast TV (yes, that means no cable). I don't want my kids exposed to the commercials, plus we save lots of money each month, so we do DVD's through the library and Netflix. And sometimes The Red Box. When I do have access to a TV though, the channel I stop most frequently on has to be Discovery Health. The "network" I watch most at home though, is Hulu.

2. If you could create your own channel, what would it be?
I really wouldn't care to.

3. What TV show did you watch as a child, that you wish they would bring back?

4. What show have you always hated, and wonder why they ever made such a dumb show?
I've never watched it to know I hate it, but I do have concerns about the way this country is going...

5. What TV show's seasons would you buy on DVD?
Working on getting every season. I currently have five...

Using your brain is hard work

2008-05-16T14:33:00.001-04:00

Eight year old E: Hey Mom, I can count to 100 by 2's, wanna hear? 2, 4, 6, 8... 94, 96, 98, 100.

Me: Nice job E, I didn't know you could do that.

E: Wow, that really hurt my brain. There's a big hole in it now where I used it up.

The Confederate Flag Debate

2008-05-15T22:42:00.000-04:00

When we went down south to The Great Smoky Mountains for our vacation a few weeks ago, I was surprised to see so many confederate flags. My husband took this one; the front of a truck. They seem to be on trucks everywhere down there; I saw a plain old pick-up truck with two giant confederate flags waving off the back of each side of the bed.

This was so disturbing to me. I had heard about the confederate flag being used in the south, or perhaps read about it at some point, but honestly never gave it much thought. Until it was right in my face.

For a moment I thought perhaps that I was so disturbed because we had recently visited the National Civil War Museum, and Belle Grove Plantation (a real plantation preserved from that era) on our way down south. But I really think I would have found it disturbing even if we hadn't visited those places.

I understand the south taking pride in where they live, just as I take pride in being a native New Yorker. But I can't understand their needing to do it to the point of insulting others. The implication certainly is that if they don't have a problem waving that flag around, they obviously don't give a crap about the black citizens they share the south with. Worse, it would seem that they believe that black folks should be slaves again. The fact is that there is no separating that flag from its history.

My son and I have recently studied the Civil War. One thing we discussed quite a bit was something I didn't get when I learned about it in school, and that is that the war didn't start out being about slavery. The south fought for their right to secede from the nation. The north fought to prevent the south from doing that. Once the north won, the war was redefined by the north as a fight for the end of slavery, since that was a result. But technically speaking, the flag was not a symbol of slavery to the south, but rather a symbol of southern pride.

That still does not change what it represents today. These days not even the word "nigger" can be used, when discussing the word itself. So in a country where conversations about "the n word" can't even contain the actual word, how can we possibly accept a confederate flag?

Seeing the flag waved around gave me a creepy feeling. Kind of like the drivers of these vehicles were implying "I got a gun inna back here, so don' be srewin' roun' wit me".

I understand freedom of speech. I can remember walking through Times Square many years ago with my best friend, who happened to be a gay man. Well, we passed a guy standing on a milk crate spewing anti-gay crap. He was holding his bible and screaming about how all fags were going to hell. I could not understand how my friend Stephen could remain calm in the face of so much blatant hatred. And he said that he was able to overlook it because he was glad to live in a place where people were allowed to spew that kind of nonsense; that it is better than living in a place where freedom of speech is not allowed, since likely that would include him not being able to live "out".

Yes, I understand the importance of free speech. I just wish I could be as gracious about it as my friend Stephen was. On the one hand I really want that flag outlawed. But what would be next to go...my right to have a bumper sticker which says "Human Milk for Human Babies" on it?

I have lots of bumper stickers on my car. But I've always been careful to keep them positive. The flag just seems so darn MEAN. I have a hard time with mean.

No matter the point of view of the person waving it; the confederate flag comes off as mean.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-05-13T23:29:00.001-04:00

Put Flight of the Conchords in your Netflix Queue. It's hysterical. (2:54)

The Friday Five

2008-05-09T23:02:00.001-04:00

Found an interesting new meme. Each Friday five questions are listed to answer. Here are this week's, along with my answers:

1. If you knew that you had only one day left to live, what would you do for the 24 hours?
I would make phone calls to people who might miss me, to say goodbye. I would spend the bulk of the day being with my husband and children; perhaps a bike ride and a picnic; something where a lot of face-to-face contact would be experienced. I'd spend a portion of the time writing letters to my children, telling them how much I love them (actually have started that via the book Reflections From A Mother's Heart). Then I'd have great sex with my husband, and probably finish up by crying myself to sleep. My boys are too young to be without a mother...

2. Do you think that life has meaning?
I believe in reincarnation, and that each lifetime teaches us something we wish to learn or experience. So yes, there is meaning.

3. What was your favorite childhood toy/object, or some of your favorites?
Barbie dolls. I did a lot of living and working things out through them.

4. When you clasp your hands, do you put your right thumb over your left thumb, or your left thumb over your right thumb?
Left over right.

5. If you had to teach the most ignorant person on earth the most difficult thing you have ever learned, how would you go about doing it?
The most ignorant person on earth would not be capable of being taught anything I would find worth teaching. Besides which, the most difficult thing anyone has ever learned is likely learned from experience only. The important stuff can't be taught. That's why we unschool.

Overheard in New York

2008-05-08T22:08:00.002-04:00

Man, I miss New York. A while back someone pointed me to the website Overheard In New York. Each week I get some great quotes mailed to me. Here is one I just got, which I love so much, I have to print here:

Subway Conductor:
Ladies and gentlemen, we are stopped here due to congestion ahead. We should be moving shortly. [2-3 minutes later.] Ladies and gentlemen, due to a malfunctioning signal, everyone will need to get off the train, take the 4 back up to 149 St Grand Concourse and take the 2 train downtown.

Train riders:
[Groan.]

Conductor:
April fools! Stand clear of the closing doors.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-05-06T00:04:00.003-04:00

Pancake Man (1:55)

The Friday Five

2008-05-02T00:56:00.000-04:00

Found an interesting new meme to try out. Each Friday five questions are listed to answer. Here are this week's, along with my answers:

1. What's one of the nicest things a friend has ever done for you?
Remembered my birthday, and sent me a card. I am really good at copying birthdays from calendar to calendar at the end each year, and send gifts and cards to family and friends, but only my parents and my aunt reciprocate. It seems like a small thing, but I was so touched when my friend C sent me a lovely birthday card last year. It's nice just to be remembered.

2. What's one of the nicest things a stranger has ever done for you?
Just recently when on vacation, I left my battery recharger plugged into the wall at a Wingate Hotel, and didn't realize it till I was miles away. The manager was nice enough to mail it to me at home.

3. What is a trait in another person that you instantly admire, and that draws you to them?
I love people who are down-to-earth. Real. People who don't take themselves too seriously.

4. What is a trait in another person that instantly repels you, and prevents you from forming a close relationship with them?
People who are pretentious. Supercilious. Pious. Who do take themselves too seriously.

5. Time to vent: tell us about something rotten someone has done to you.
I've finally moved on and am done dwelling on it. That chapter is closed...

YouTube Tuesday

2008-04-29T21:15:00.002-04:00

Makes me cry every time. (4:06)

Wordless Wednesday

2008-04-09T10:17:00.001-04:00

"And we're off..."

Learn more about Wordless Wednesday, and find the blogroll of others who are participating here.

Update on CT SB 162

2008-04-08T23:59:00.004-04:00

This afternoon I attended a meeting with Senator Tom Gaffey, of whom I am a constituent.

Senator Gaffey had his researchers there. They explained that the only real problem with the wording for §10-220 is that it could be seen as superseding some of the language that exists in §10-184. §10-184 has verbiage which makes it necessary for parents to go in person to remove their children from schools if their children are 16 or over and want to drop out. They are afraid that if certified letters are required to withdraw in §10-220, that parents whose children are dropping out will only send a letter and not show up in person so that "schools can talk them out of letting their kids drop out".

I suggested that they amend the language O'Neill wrote to include the fact that it applied to children 15 and under, but that it should still remain in §10-220. The researchers who were present agreed that that is feasible. I also told the senator straight out that the homeschooling community will never allow changes to go through on §10-184, and that we will definitely be able to get it killed if this goes through as it currently is. He seemed genuinely taken aback to hear this.

I did have to leave early because of babysitting issues, but after lots of participation, finished up by saying that as a constituent, I was "asking, no, begging" that he not only please change the language back to §10-220, but that he work with us to get it pushed through the senate the way we want it. And then he would finally have us all out of his hair. And because if it didn't get changed, it would get killed.

Senator Gaffey agrees that what is currently happening to the families this would help is unacceptable. I believe that he really does want to get this problem fixed.

Unfortunately Judy Aron really aggravated Senator Gaffey with her blog titled "Gaffey spits in the face..." He would not let her or Deborah Stevenson, of National Home Education Legal Defense, into the meeting today at all. It was 8 constituents. And him and his 1/2 dozen people. I personally am glad that they were not permitted to enter, since I went as a constituent, and wanted my own voice heard above the lawyers'. Today I wanted to represent myself.

I personally feel that Senator Gaffey is a reasonable man who really is interested in doing what is best for our children. And given the chance, he can be the advocate we need in the Senate to get this bill passed as originally written. Please take the time to write to him to ask him to do just that.

He was overwhelmed by the "over 400" emails he has received, and that's why he sent all of us who wrote a "canned response"; he simply did not have the time to send individual emails to that many people. So if you want to make sure he reads your thoughts, the best thing to do is write a letter to him at his home address. Since I easily found it on the internet, I don't see any harm in repeating it here and saving you the time of the search:

Senator Thomas P. Gaffey
64 Nutmeg Drive, Apt. C
Meriden, CT 06451-2887

I believe that the CT homeschooling community is now of one mind on this; we need to continue to work to get this bill passed as originally written. We are now extremely confident that we really will have no problem getting it killed if it becomes necessary, so we may as well keep trying.

Please write to Senator Gaffey and your own senators in CT and ask them to represent us the way we need them to.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-04-08T10:57:00.003-04:00

Mad TV's Dot and Homeschooling (6:15)

Carnival of Homeschooling

2008-04-03T14:23:00.000-04:00

Carnival of Homeschooling #117, the April Fool's Day Edition has been published.

I have an entry posted in this carnival. C heck it out.

What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-04-01T09:00:00.002-04:00

My kids are so loving this one...(2:04)

Movie Review: The Trail of Tears

2008-03-31T16:57:00.006-04:00

We are heading to The Great Smoky Mountains in a couple of weeks, and one of the things we plan to do is visit the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in North Carolina. I checked out a few books at the library, but couldn't find anything inviting which discussed The Trail of Tears. So I checked Netflix, where I've had great luck with this sort of thing in the past, but they had absolutely nothing on The Cherokee Indians, or The Trail of Tears. Finally I went a head and spent a few bucks and bought this over at Amazon, knowing that my children will pretty much watch anything I put in front of them, as long as it doesn't "count" toward their allotted "TV time". It was worth every penny.

Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy is not rated, but I'd give it a PG. There was one PG-13 part where a woman shared a story about a young girl being "attacked" by soldiers, who each waited their turn while the parents had to listen in the other room, but I fast forwarded that, having been prepared by pre-screening. It's unfortunate that that part was left in, as the rest of the movie was acceptable for my 11- and seven-year-olds. There was one part where the murder of a chief was described as having happened by him being stabbed five times, while the visual showed the rise and fall of sticks behind shrubs. All the realities of the story were presented in a way which conveyed their seriousness without the graphic violence.

I would definitely recommend watching this with children, and not leaving it to them to watch alone.

Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy was produced by Rich-Heape Films, which is a Native American owned production company. I therefore feel confident in the accuracy of the film. Several present-day Cherokees, including one who spoke in the Cherokee language, historians, and the narrator James Earl Jones, wove the story together beautifully. It was a polished combination of narrative, over acting in period costume.

From the back of the DVD box: "Thousands of Cherokees died during the Trail of Tears, nearly a quarter of the Nation. They suffered beyond imagination...and when they finally arrived in Indian Territory, they arrived almost without any children and with very few elders. In a way they arrived with no past and no future." I was happy when this quote came up in the movie itself and my 11-year-old said "I get that". My seven-year-old played with his cars in the room at the beginning, but started paying attention when the actual walking of the trail was portrayed.

I highly recommend this movie. It is an engaging way to learn about what happened to The Cherokees; to understand the hardship they faced and the realities of the government we are part of. I feel my children and I are better for having watched it.

And I look forward to stepping into history and learning more on our vacation.

5 Favorite Podcasts

2008-03-29T20:06:00.002-04:00

...in the order that I find time to listen to them.

Real Time With Bill Maher

Bill Maher is one of the most politically astute humorists in America today. His unflinching honesty and commitment to never pulling a punch have garnered him the respect and admiration of millions of fans. Each week, Bill's hilarious opening monologue, incisive interviews and stimulating panel discussion, as well as his extremely popular "New Rules" segment, serve to wrap up the week's most important events in a way that makes you think, as well as laugh. I listen to this one every week.

The Best of YouTube

This one is pretty self explanatory. They put out a new one every five days. It's what inspired me to start YouTube Tuesday.

TedTalks

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

The TED Conference, held annually in Monterey, is still the heart of TED. More than a thousand people now attend indeed, the event sells out a year in advance and the content has expanded to include science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world. Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, and there are many shorter pieces of content, including music, performance and comedy. There are no breakout groups. Everyone shares the same experience. It shouldn't work, but it does. It works because all of knowledge is connected. Every so often it makes sense to emerge from the trenches we dig for a living, and ascend to a 30,000-foot view, where we see, to our astonishment, an intricately interconnected whole.

TEDTalks began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker "ideas worth spreading," talks were released online. They rapidly attracted a global audience in the millions. Indeed, the reaction was so enthusiastic that the entire TED website has been reengineered around TEDTalks, with the goal of giving everyone on-demand access to the world's most inspiring voices.

You can listen to many of the talks on their website, but I prefer keeping them on my iPod and listening while I'm making dinner or watching soccer practice.

Mr. Deity

This one started out really funny, but I'm not enjoying it as much as I used to. The irony used to be wonderful, but now it's getting silly. Mr. Deity is a semi-monthly video series (every two weeks) that looks at God and the Universe with a smile (and sometimes, a wink). It's a video podcast. You can watch them right online (on YouTube), but again, I prefer to put mine on a little credit card-sized computer to watch when I can. I do still watch it regularly, but I don't know for how much longer.

Thoughts on Photography

Exploring what it means to live a photographic life. I don't have time to get to this one every week, but I enjoy it when I do. I love taking pictures, and this inspires me to consider it my art instead of just a hobby.

YouTube Tuesday

2008-03-25T19:26:00.007-04:00

Wherein I share some of my favorite YouTube videos.
This week: Big Brother is watching (2:14)

The homeschooling laws in CT may be changing

2008-03-23T17:21:00.001-04:00

"If you're a homeschooler, you're automatically a member of the homeschooling movement. There are no requirements or membership fees, but you can't choose not to be a member either. Like it or not, if you're a homeschooler, you're part of the movement, and what you do affects other homeschoolers and your own future as a homeschooler. Being part of the homeschooling movement has many advantages and some serious responsibilities..."
..........Larry and Susan Kaseman, Home Education Magazine

There is so much chatter going on in the Connecticut homeschooling community right now. We are facing the possibility of having our rights to homeschool as we have always done, change dramatically.

People I know have been having trouble following what the heck is going on, because it is only recently that circumstances have begun to affect them personally. So I figured I'd summarize the whole thing. You can find other blogs which also do so, but mine will be a more simplified version (hopefully) and specifically for those who are arriving with no knowledge of this at all. Also, I will speak a little bit as to what the viewpoints are in the homeschooling community here.

The whole thing started because many families who withdraw their children from public school to homeschool have been reported to DCF. What specifically happens is that parents send a letter to the school informing them that their child will no longer be attending that school. But the superintendent does not remove the child from the roster, so eventually because the child no longer shows up, the child is considered truant and the parents are reported to DCF for "educational neglect". You can find a map of all the towns in CT where this problem has occurred here, and as you can see, the problem has become too widespread for comfort.

So Deborah Stevenson of National Home Education Legal Defense, (NHELD) our foremost legal homeschooling advocate here in CT, spent the last several years working to get legislation through to stop this, with CT Representative Arthur O'Neill. In 2005, 2006, and 2007, Rep. O'Neill offered some bills and amendments to get withdrawal language codified. All three years the bills were never raised out of the Education Committee and instead were allowed to die. No hearing dates were ever set for the bills.

Now in 2008 Rep. O'Neill has tried again. He invited legislators to a series of legislative forums to educate them as to why this bill was necessary and to enlist their support for it in this session of the legislature. At one of these forums, the Chairman of the legislature’s Select Committee on Children, State Senator Ed Meyer, said that he would raise the bill for a public hearing.

"The procedure after voting to raise the bill is for the chairmen of the committee to inform the Legislative Commissioner’s Office that they want the bill officially drafted in appropriate legislative language. The drafted bill is then given a number and published".[1] SB 162 basically started out saying that if a parent sends a certified letter to a school telling them they are withdrawing their child, the school must accept that letter and disenroll the child.

The first bump started at the Legistlative Commissioners' Office. SB 162 came out of that office completely transformed. Instead of changing Connecticut General Statute Section 10-220: the Duties of Boards of Education, it changed Connecticut General Statute Section 10-184: the Duties of Parents. We can now easily speculate as to how the changes were snuck in...

The next step was a public hearing. Luckily the committee Chairman, Senator Ed Meyer, was aware of the changes, and announced "at the beginning of the public hearing that the intent of the committee was to vote on the bill as originally proposed, that the committee would proceed with the hearing with the understanding that the committee intended the bill as originally proposed to be acted upon, that the mysteriously changed language would be eliminated and the original language would be substituted in its place, and that the committee likely would vote to approve the amended version of the bill containing the original language as proposed by Rep. O’Neill". [2] Many, many families showed up to support the bill in its original language, and share their horror stories in being reported to DCF. Later, on February 28th, the Select Committee on Children unanimously voted the bill through as originally written.

Now on to the Education Committee; the committee which had refused to raise the bill over the past three years. Remember now, the hearing part was over, so the public could no longer speak to all the legislators in a public forum and on the record. NHELD encouraged the CT homeschooling community to contact co-Chairs Senator Thomas Gaffey and Representative Andrew Fleischmann to ask them to raise the bill, and the rest of the legislators on the Education Committee to ask that they pass it. We homeschoolers in CT got busy.

"Constituents of Gaffey and Fleischmann [wrote] and called asking them to support the bill. Fleischmann sent out the same noncommittal standard form letter to all those who inquired merely thanking them for contacting him and saying nothing else. Gaffey did respond to one constituent’s inquiry. He contacted her by telephone seemingly expressing his support for the bill by indicating he didn’t think there would be “any problem” with it in the Education Committee. When [his constituent] wrote him back asking him to clarify whether that meant he would raise the bill in the Education Committee and urge its adoption, however, Gaffey [did not] respond at all.

"Meanwhile, the State Education Commissioner, Mark McQuillan, provided Rep. O’Neill with a copy of a proposed bill that would substantially change Connecticut General Statute 10-184. Essentially, the bill as proposed by Commissioner McQuillan did not include the language as proposed by Rep. O’Neill. Instead, it included the mysteriously changed language that we saw prior to the public hearing on SB 162." [3]

On March 17th, Senator Gaffey stated that he planned to put before the Education Committee at its meeting the next day, Senate Bill 162 containing what he called “compromise language”. And that is exactly what he did. He proposed the language that would change Connecticut General Statute Section 10-184: the Duties of Parents, instead of changing Connecticut General Statute Section 10-220: the Duties of Boards of Education.

Taken directly from the video of the meeting (you can watch the entire thing here if you are so inclined; start at 01:01:50 on the clock, for SB 162):

Representative Bartlett:
"Mr Chairman, the proposed substitute, changes the General Statute section from 10-220, which is the way it came out of "Children", to 10-184, is that my understanding, is that correct?...Can the Chair just explain why the change?"

Co-Chairman Senator Gaffey:
"Sure. Because in the prior section that was in the bill that came out of the Children's Committee, that section does not include other withdrawals of children from school that section 184 does, such as children who are between 16 and 18 and seek to withdraw from school, or children that are between the ages of five to seven, that seek to withdraw, or the parents seek to have them not enter school at that age, but to wait until they're either six or seven."

Representative Bartlett:
"...Is the chair comfortable with the proposed language in the statute now addressing this problem that the [homeschooling] advocates perceive?"

Co-Chairman Senator Gaffey:
"The Chair had a good discussion with Representative O'Neill, to get to your first points, yesterday, who is the author of the bill that was before the Children's Committee. Rep. O'Neill met with myself, and the lawyers on the committee, they explained why they felt that the bill that came out of the Kids Committee did not reference the appropriate statute. We provided Representative O'Neill with the language that's before you, Representative Hovey in her duty as ranking member, spoke to Representative O'Neill directly subsequent to that, and Representative O'Neill said he was quote, unquote, fine, with this language. So I would presume that since Representative O'Neill is the prime mover of the legislation and as a lawyer, a very bright lawyer at that, has looked at this, and has contemplated it, as I know he always does, and then told the ranking member that he was fine with the language, that he has agreed with our staff that it made more sense to have this language fit into 184 rather than 220.

"And the nub of the issue coming out of the children's committee, which I watched a great deal of that hearing, was the fact that there was an issue on notice, and whether or not the school district was just claiming that, or the school, claiming that they hadn't received the notice. And of course we've written into this language that the notice, that would be a letter by certified mail, so that the parent would have the return receipt as evidence that they in fact, did provide adequate notice to the Superinitnedent or the Prinicipal of the school.

"So, I think we're on firm ground here, I understand that there maybe attorneys representing the advocates that want to construct a legal argument here, but this is the state legislature, it's not a court of law, and none of us are qualified are sit in interpretation of a legal argument...I understand the argument, I don't believe it's correct, and I understand and I listened to the pleas of the parents that had undergone just in some cases horrific treatment with folks from school districts, supposedly calling DCF, so DCF would visit the homes, and just incredibly horrible situations between the people at DCF and the poor parents who are just trying to homeschool their children. I was extremely sympathetic to that, if someone would suggest how to better prevent that under statute, I'm all ears.

"We actually offered to Representative O'Neill yesterday and was actually part of one of our drafts that there would be a civil penalty to a school district who did not conform to the statutes and it was thought by the good Representative that because that would cause an immediate referral to judiciary, that he would rather not persue that this year, but take it up next year when we have more time in the longer session.

"So we've vetted this pretty carefully and again I understand that some people may be concerned. I hope folks aren't concerned because it's different, a different section of statutes and a different bill. There's no conspiracy to undo what was intended, we fully are trying to meet the intention, and in fact we do under this statute, rather than under the first statute."

So they took a vote and the thing got passed on the wrong statute. We were attempting to get legislation passed to guarantee that superintendents accept our "notice" to withdraw our children to homeschool, and what we got instead is the requirement for us to fill out a "notice of intent"; something which till now had only been "suggested procedure". This means that all homeschoolers will need to inform their school districts of their intention to homeschool. If my summary is not enough, you can find more detail in what this all means to us now here.

So on March 18th the bill passed through the Education Committee. And on March 20th, Representative O'Neill sent an email to all legislators stating:

"I support the language that was reported by the Children’s Committee and which was referred to the Education Committee. Even more importantly this is the version that the home schooling community supports.

"The redraft of SB 162 done by the Education is NOT the version that I support. Although I am grateful that my request to remove the fine provision from a draft of the bill was granted, after reviewing the video recording of the Education Committee Meeting I believe that there was confusion about my position during that meeting.

"I will work to change SB 162 so that we can pass a bill that is acceptable to the home schooling community on whose behalf I, and many of you, have been advocating this legislation." [4]

So now it goes to the Senate and if it passes there, eventually the House. NHELD is telling us all to write our legislators: "Because the Gaffey version of the bill raises complicated issues, ones that most legislators have not taken the time, or probably will take the time, to go into in depth...what we would suggest as a strategy for talking with legislators is to simplify it as much as possible. We would suggest telling them the Gaffey version is not acceptable for a variety of reasons, most importantly because it does not address the issue raised in the O’Neill version. It does not require school districts to accept a letter of withdrawal from parents and does not require the school districts to actually consider the child withdrawn. The O'Neill version as approved by the Select Committee on Children does do both of those things."[5]

Which brings us to the discussion happening on the homeschooling boards. So far, the people chiming in seem split down the middle. Some believe "momentum is still in favor of getting this bill changed rather than getting it killed. If for no other reason we can capitalize on Gaffey & Fleischmann's disgusting behavior in completely hijacking our bill. I really do think that will win us sympathy votes if we articulate the situation well."

However, others are feeling very frightened to have our rights changed so dramatically: "I do agree it is easier for us to ask for SB 162 to just be killed rather than get into a discussion of changing back the language. Sad also to say now I’m in more of the mode of 'help our family' by not getting legislation for us right here and now rather than thinking about what is better for the future HSing families and families who are presently using public schools."

CT Homeschool Network (CHN) just announced a "Take Action Forum": "Attorney Deborah Stevenson and Judy Aron [of NHELD] have been invited and have agreed to discuss with us all that's going on with SB 162. You'll be able to ask all your questions. Our goal is to unite the homeschool community so that we may stand uniform in our correspondence with our Reps."

To me, this sounds like a meeting to convince us all to keep working for the original wording of SB 162. And I have a couple of problems with this. First, I don't think CHN should be taking a political stand on this issue; they should present speakers to address the issues of both sides (fighting for a change back in language vs. killing the bill altogether). And from the meeting announcement, it sounds like they are in fact, taking a stand and advising people what to do rather than working to "inform" and "empower" as their mission statement says.

Second, to be honest, I have lost confidence in NHELD. I left the Education Committee meeting on March 18th with a hard copy of the revised language. I was appalled to read and understand it when I got home, since I understood what it meant to ALL homeschoolers, and not just people who wanted to withdraw their children from public schools. However, NHELD's statement, released that day, mentioned only what the change in language meant to the enrollment issue; it did not mention what the damage could be to the rest of us at all. It was not until March 21st that NHELD released an "Updated Interpretation of the Gaffey version of SB 162" acknowledging that they did not realize the entire ramifications of the bill until someone else pointed it out to them.

I myself would love to hear a balanced discussion about the realities of what can occur. I had originally thought hearing Deborah Stevenson speak in person would be enough, but now I'm realizing the importance of both sides being heard. So I continue relying on the opinions of people on the homeschooling lists. My own tendencies keep oscillating. If this bill goes through as it is currently written, it will be the beginning of oversight in a state which has been entirely free of it. But if we don't manage to get it changed and push it through, we will only have the same problems when we try again next year. Plus future homeschoolers will continue to be harassed.

References:
[1] http://nheld.com/sb162Notice021808.htm
[2] http://nheld.com/SB162UPDATEONPUBLICHEARING.htm
[3] http://nheld.com/sb162UPDATE030608.htm
[4] http://nheld.com/StatementAONeill.htm
[5] http://nheld.com/SB162UPDATEDINTERPRETATION032108.htm

A stack of books to read

2008-03-18T23:18:00.021-04:00

My stack of books to read keeps getting larger. Between PaperBackSwap, a book sale at my local library, and an interlibrary loan which I have to pick up tomorrow, I'm having a hard time keeping up.

I'm in the middle of Teach a Child to Read with Children's Books. So far I am really enjoying it. I'm about 3/4 through, and it is really making sense to me. So E and I have put aside the Now I'm Reading books and have picked up some Dr. Seuss. He is thrilled to be reading "real" books, and even managed to sound out "wonderful" this evening. I am just about to get to the part where the author suggests how to incorporate writing into the reading experience, but so far so good!

Teaching the Three R's Through Movement Experiences is something I requested through interlibrary loan, and which arrived much more quickly than I though it would. It will be interesting to see where it came from; last time I requested a book through interlibrary loan, it came all the way from Florida! I like to borrow the more expensive books this way to be sure they are something I want to spend the money on purchasing for my permanent library. I'm hoping this book will give me ideas for helping me encourage my kinesthetic learner. So far he's been happy with some manipulatives, but he really likes to move. I 'm really looking forward to getting my hands on this, but would like to finish the other one first. On the other hand, I own the other one and can come back to it. So, we'll see what happens.

Nonviolent Communication has been on my wish list at PaperBackSwap for months, and I finally got it! I first heard about it through a Leader Program with La Leche League. The woman who was recommending it could not speak highly enough of it. The description from Amazon.com:

Do you hunger for skills to improve the quality of your relationships, to deepen your sense of personal empowerment or to simply communicate more effectively? Unfortunately, for centuries our culture has taught us to think and speak in ways that can actually perpetuate conflict, internal pain and even violence. Nonviolent Communication partners practical skills with a powerful consciousness and vocabulary to help you get what you want peacefully.

In this internationally acclaimed text, Marshall Rosenberg offers insightful stories, anecdotes, practical exercises and role-plays that will dramatically change your approach to communication for the better. Discover how the language you use can strengthen your relationships, build trust, prevent conflicts and heal pain. Revolutionary, yet simple, NVC offers you the most effective tools to reduce violence and create peace in your life—one interaction at a time.

I have to admit it's closer to the bottom of the pile now, since I own it. But I do look forward to reading it.

One book which I'm anxious to read for myself is Maiden, Mother, Crone. The Myth & Reality of the Triple Goddess. Although I do not believe in a goddess as a deity, I am interested in learning more about her as she pertains to the goddess in each of us, and the stages of life that we go through as womyn. Hopefully this book will bring some of that to me. This also came via PaperBackSwap much sooner that I thought it would. It looks like a quick read, so I might pick up this one after The Three R's.

These days I don't spend much time on fiction. I belong to a book club which makes me read one at least once a month, but I'm about to leave that group. Once in a while I pick up a two-week book from the library. I guess I do better with fiction knowing I have a deadline; otherwise I get distracted with all the non-fiction stuff I want to learn!

I don't remember how I came across this, but it's called The Dawn of Amber. I read the original Amber Chronicles, by Roger Zelazny, when a friend introduced me to them in college. I had enjoyed a few fantasy novels before them, but frankly, these changed my world. They put the ten books into one now, and call it The Great Book of Amber.

Well like I said, I don't remember how I found out about The Dawn of Amber, but I read the reviews on Amazon and decided I had to read it even though most die-hard fans of the originals think it stinks. An excerpt from the Amazon site:

Fans of the late Roger Zelazny's popular Amber series should flock to this workmanlike, authorized prequel, the first of a projected trilogy, by Betancourt (Infection and three other Star Trek novels). Betancourt captures the fantastic nature of the original and peppers his story with Amber-familiar terms...The narrative may lack the sparkling wit of its predecessors, but the cliffhanger ending should leave the faithful hungry for the next installment.

Even crappy Amber is Amber. It will be good to be reading about Corwin again. I just have to wait until my husband finishes it and lets me have it, first!

There are many more books on my pile, but I will stop here for now. Maybe more another day. Perhaps instead of sitting here blogging about them all I could read one...

Carnival of Homeschooling

2008-03-17T21:19:00.000-04:00

Carnival of Homeschooling #115, the Oh, The Things That You'll Do! Edition has been published.

I have an entry posted in this carnival. C heck it out.

What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Products being advertised in children's books

2008-03-14T13:49:00.009-04:00

I'm on the mailing list of Commercial Alert, whose mission is "to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy." I get very little mail from them, actually, but did get something interesting today:

HarperCollins Children's Books recently announced plans to publish a new series of books targeted at 8- to 12-year-olds featuring a character called "Mackenzie Blue."

Although touted by the publisher for teaching kids about protecting the environment and promoting global understanding, the Mackenzie Blue series actually aims to be a vehicle for delivering commercial messages, through product-placement hidden advertisements, product tie-ins, and affiliated multi-media corporate sponsorships. The author of the series, Tina Wells, is chief executive of Buzz Marketing Group, which specializes in marketing to children and adolescents.

Book publishers should not be exploiting children for commercial gain. Books should educate and entertain children - not encourage them to buy a particular brand of shoe or soft drink.

Please click here to tell HarperCollins not to publish "Mackenzie Blue" unless all product placements and tie-ins with external advertisers are removed.

Well, when I read the press release which the email links to, I did not see any mention of product placing directly within the books. It just seemed to me that the marketing to go along with the books would be ala Hannah Montana; merchandising pushed to the max. And while I don't condone that, as homeschoolers it is easy enough to protect my kids from it.

So, before I shot a letter off to HarperCollins, I did a google search on "Mackenzie Blue". Surprisingly, the top response was for a rock band. I checked out their website and wrote them an email letting them know that their name is being used and they might want to look into it.

I then waded through the myriad of listings which simply spewed out the press release, and after following through on many links, did eventually find a page which talks about product placement within the stories themselves. From The New York Times (registration required to follow the link and read the article in its entirety):

In “Mackenzie Blue,”... a new series aimed at 8- to 12-year-old girls from HarperCollins Children’s Books, product placement is very much a part of the plan. Tina Wells, chief executive of Buzz Marketing Group, which advises consumer product companies on how to sell to teenagers and preteenagers, will herself be the author of titles in the series filled with references to brands. She plans to offer the companies that make them the chance to sponsor the books.

... Susan Katz, publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books, said she was not concerned about a possible backlash against corporate sponsorship in books aimed at such a young audience. “If you look at Web sites, general media or television, corporate sponsorship or some sort of advertising is totally embedded in the world that tweens live in,” Ms. Katz said. “It gives us another opportunity for authenticity.”

So basically the idea is that it's out there anyway, so why shouldn't HarperCollins profit from it too?

The woman who is writing this book is not even a writer, she is chief executive of a marketing group!

I did actually go back to Commercial alert, and send my email off to HarperCollins, after altering the wording of the "form letter" to include the fact that I am a homeschooler and plan to advertise this over-the-top marketing to every homeschooler I could get to listen. So please, email HarperCollins, or sign up with Commercial Alert to use their simple form letter, but please do let these vultures know we are not surrendering our kids so easily. Then be sure to spread the word to all of your homeschool groups so they can write too. As homeschoolers we are the conscientious ones; we are the ones who actively work to protect our children.

I always thought that as a homeschooler it is a little easier for me to protect my kids from mainstream marketing, but the truth is, had I not gotten this email from Commercial Alert, I would never have known that this is a threat. It's getting so exhausting to stay a step ahead of all the predators out there!

Here is a link to an article I found worth reading regarding this emerging problem.

A knock on my door today...

2008-03-10T19:21:00.005-04:00

from a Jehovah's Witness. Oh, the irony!

I get frustrated, but I still choose tolerance.

Anti-gay Christians

2008-03-08T23:52:00.013-05:00

I am on a homeschooling yahoo group here in Connecticut, which has almost 600 members. It is mostly used for people to post activities that other homeschoolers might be interested in, with a smattering of threads about curriculum and educational philosophy.

Well today, someone listed this:

I’m pleased to forward information below about the 15th annual True Colors conference, coming up next Friday and Saturday, March 14 & 15, 2008 (there’s also a Pre-Conference Professional Institute on Thursday, March 13). True Colors organizes the largest sexual/gender minority (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or GLBT) youth issues conference in the nation, with over 3,000 attendees expected in 2008.

The theme this year is “A Global Perspective”, and there will be over 150 workshops and activities for youth/parents as well as professional audiences (educators, clinicians, etc.). Hosted this year by UCONN/Storrs, the conference is co-sponsored by many of the University’s schools and cultural centers, along with the State of Connecticut, American Academy of Pediatrics, and many other organizations.

*HOMESCHOOLING PARENTS* who are not requesting CEUs are eligible to ATTEND FRIDAY and/or SATURDAY at YOUTH RATES--homeschooling youth are already eligible for youth rates, of course (in addition to being the mother of a homeschooled child, my partner Robin McHaelen is also the Executive Director of True Colors)! :o) Just indicate when you register that you are a homeschooling parent requesting the youth rate.

True Colors’ Mission: “True Colors works to create a world where youth, adults and families of all sexual orientations and gender identities are valued and affirmed. We challenge all forms of oppression through education, training, advocacy, youth leadership development, mentoring and direct services to youth and those responsible for their well-being.”

For information on conference rates, registration, presenters, workshops, activities, etc., go to www.OurTrueColors.org.

And one of the group members responded with this:

Is this some sort of joke? I sincerely hope so. This is one of the bigger reasons I pulled my kids out of school, to keep them away from the sick minded warped main stream population. Gross!!! Why would anyone want to bring their family anywhere near that kind of influence.

Niki in CT

despite the fact that the group guidelines specifically state (among other things):

If a post doesn’t pertain to you, just hit delete!
We do not wish to engage in heated debates. Stating your opinion on a topic is fine, as long as it is respectful and considerate of the other members...

Well, despite the fact that I am not willing to spend the time looking through all the archives of things she's written to confirm this, I feel comfortable guessing that this Niki is a Christian, because this kind of language is really consistent with too many other Christian homeschoolers I've met. I have not spoken out strongly against Christians because I hate to alienate some of my readers, but enough already!

I've been listening to these podcasts, which actually started out on YouTube by a guy named Pat Condell. As an atheist, he's been giving me a lot of food for thought. Just this morning I listened to this:

Well I have to admit that I'm starting to actually agree with him. I'm tired of pious people (starting with family members). They are infiltrating our entire government and way of living, and they are about the most unkind and prejudiced people I meet. It's time to stop putting up with them, because they do not make any effort to get along with non-Christians!

Just the other night I went to a homeschool meeting and someone there said something along the lines of having problems with the principal of her local school being gay. Well, not wanting to cause a ruckus, I did not comment on it, but you know, I'm starting to really feel like I need to start calling moral bigots moral bigots, right to their faces.

This is all so tiresome. Even Gandhi wrote: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

I didn't answer Niki's post, despite my desire to, because the list owners did address this hatred (despite being Christian themselves) and asked that the conversation discontinue. And it did mostly, until a gay woman responded eloquently and without malice.

I wrote what I hope was a supportive email to her off-list, but was very happy to see someone defy the wishes of the moderators and post a supportive response. An excerpt:

It is actually people like her [Niki] in my opinion that cause outsiders to say we should not homeschool our kids unless we are educated.

I have told myself to ignore everything from this poster because she writes like a little girl responding with a knee jerk response- not caring about what comes out of her mouth.

I have never met her, never want to, but this is not the first post that I have found offensive.

Had to write you. Try to breathe deep and know that many of us were offended by her comments...and we are accepting of all forms/types of families...well, that is not true, personally I have a very difficult time accepting families that promote inacceptance.

I didn't want to alienate myself, so I wrote to the gay woman off-list. Next time I will have the courage to do it on-list.

More about me

2008-03-08T23:00:00.006-05:00

Welcome to the party!

I go by the name of Love 2B Homeschoolers; welcome to my place. So why should you care about me and what I think about things? Well, that's what this post is for. There's a glimpse of me on the sidebar to your left, but I thought I'd take some time to elaborate on it. Then if you find that I'm someone you can relate to, you can stop by again.

So my "About Me" reads: I'm a liberal Sagittarian, city-girl moved to suburbia, minivan driving, married, soccer mom, who is joyfully attachment parenting and homeschooling two boys, aged 11 and 7. And here's the elaboration:

I'm a liberal...

Though I don't believe I'd ever have an abortion, I like the fact that I can.

I'm a fag hag, currently without a fag (AIDS hit me hard). I loved having gay friends, and totally miss them. My life is just such that I don't run into many these days. If you ever have the chance to be friends with an out gay man, I highly recommend it. They are the best girlfriends in the world. Seriously.

I reject religion, though I am very spiritual. And I belong to a womyn's group which meets once a month where we talk about such things.

I was on vacation during the primaries, but my absentee ballot was for Obama. I originally thought I'd vote for Clinton, but I now feel she'd be business as usual. Obama offers hope. By the way, I'm really annoyed with the fact that Barack Obama is referred to as Obama, and Hillary Clinton is always referred to as Hillary. Sexism prevails.

Sagittarian...

Full blown 100%. Here's a decent description, although I'm cutting out a couple of things which don't apply to me:

Sagittarians have a positive outlook on life, are full of enterprise, versatility, adventurousness and eagerness to extend experience beyond the physically familiar. They enjoy traveling and exploration, the more so because their minds are constantly open to new dimensions of thought. They are basically optimistic, and continue to be so even when their hopes are dashed. Their strongly idealistic natures can also suffer many disappointments without being affected. They are honorable, honest, trustworthy, truthful, generous and sincere, with a passion for justice. They are usually on the side of the underdog in society they will fight for any cause they believe to be just, and are prepared to be rebellious. They balance loyalty with independence.

One very characteristic trait I have is that I stick my foot in my mouth often. I'm overly honest, and sometimes hurt people's feelings. I'm very quick to apologize though!

city-girl moved to suburbia...

I grew up in Queens, New York. My husband and I moved to Connecticut when we were about 30, I think. I went to School of Visual Arts (college) in Manhattan. I went to Studio 54 with my gay friends, and hung out on Long Island listening to New Wave in places like Spit and Paris, New York with my boyfriend, who later became my husband. B and I went to lots of concerts, especially at The Ritz in The Village, and also enjoyed giant margaritas with cute little plastic dinosaurs in them at a place called Continental Divide.

After graduating college I worked in Manhattan for a couple of years (computer graphics layout). I got married in 1991 and when my husband was offered a job with Caldor in Connecticut, we jumped at it. I never wanted to have my kids grow up in New York. So now we live in the suburbs.

minivan driving...

Well, we live in the suburbs, don't we? I drive a Honda Odyssey. I've been a die-hard Honda owner since my first Accord when we moved to CT and I got a job (never needed a car in New York!). My Odyssey has a soccer ball stuck to the top of the antenna, and a bunch of bumper stickers on the back. Yes, I sell a bunch of them; click on my LuminociTees logo on the right sidebar to see them.

married...

It will be 17 years on May 25th. Holy cow! And we were together for seven years before we got married. So on May 25th I will have been with the same man for 24 years. Wow that's mind boggling. I am 43 though, and consider myself blessed that I found a man worth staying with for all this time. B is a gem. He is a really good, decent man, and the love I see in his eyes melts me.

soccer mom...

I'm about 60 pounds overweight, so I am very willing to drive my kids any darn place they want to go to exercise, even if it means sitting in the rain in my comfy folding chair, or freezing my butt off in the indoor soccer arena which is never heated.

who is joyfully attachment parenting...

Home birth, family bed, extended nursing, sling carrying, La Leche League Leader for four years. That sort of thing. Now that we are older, it mostly refers to our discipline style. Maybe it also refers to the way we eat. We follow the dietary guidelines of Weston Price the best we can, and eat very very few processed foods (at least at home).

and homeschooling...

We are unschoolers. Or as I like to call it, self-directed learners. I wrote about what I consider the difference to be, here.

I adore homeschooling. I can't imagine shipping my kids off to someone else every day, and missing out on all their adventures and challenges. I have another blog, which is a day in the life type-thing, which you can read here if you are interested in what our homeschooling looks like.

two boys aged 11 and 7...

So happy to have boys. They are both so different, and I adore them immensely.

So that's me. Hope you found some of you in all this, and decide to return sometime soon!

10 Favorite Quotes...on trust

2008-02-29T17:48:00.001-05:00

If we are bound to forgive an enemy, we are not bound to trust him.
...............Thomas Fuller

Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath.
...............Solon

Never trust the teller. Trust the tale.
...............D. H. Lawrence

You don't repair that relationship by sitting down and talking about trust or making promises. Actually, what rebuilds it is living it and doing things differently.
...............Patricia Hewitt

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe.
...............H. L. Mencken

It takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.
...............Anonymous

Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.
...............Johann Kaspar Lavater

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.
...............Charles Dickens

Who can I trust? You have to invest in somebody and chances are you're probably going to invest in somebody who's going to deceive you. I've been conned a couple of times, but now I'm a little more savvy.
...............Maggie Gyllenhaal

Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
...............Eric Hoffer

Carnival of Homeschooling

2008-02-26T18:24:00.000-05:00

Carnival of Homeschooling #113, the Political Parties of Our Government Edition has been published.

What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

I have an entry posted in this carnival. C heck it out.

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Rating blogs and movies

2008-02-25T13:56:00.000-05:00

I saw a rating posted on a blog I read pretty regularly, and clicked on it to rate my own. This blog was given a rating of PG. Want to know why? Because the word "gun" appears in it, once. You can go back and read that post here.

I found this really curious since my other blog got a rating of G despite my using the word "gun" there too. Here's the link to that post.

So obviously the rating is not accurate, even just for so-called "bad" words. The site where you can find out your rating says nothing about how it is formulated. It also doesn't say how many posts back they go in their search for bad words. The utility checked my site way too fast to have gone back through all my old posts, so I'm guessing they only check the "home page" of a given blog. The word is in the title of one of my posts, and therefore in my archives; so the word "gun" appears in the code of my home page.

I like the idea of using a rating system for blogs, despite the fact that my children do not yet read any. But I think if this rating system does get used, it will have to be more of a self-rating which we impose on ourselves. If this were the case, I would rate this blog PG, but not because of the words, but rather the subject matter. I talk about what I think about things, and even though my language might be rated G, the subject matter may very well be rated higher.

On the other hand, I have read blogs where the subject matter is rated G and the language is R. This is unfortunate because my children will never be allowed to read the blogs of some of their friends' families. Some people just have potty mouths.

With ratings, we also come up against the problem of what some people think deserves a G rating compared to what others think.

My husband and I recently watched a movie called This Film is Not Yet Rated. We checked it out because I was interested in learning how movies earn their ratings, or more specifically, who is deciding that stupid, dummy, idiot, and other such words deserve a G rating. (Although I am very liberal, I am super conservative when it comes to exposing my children to things before they are ready.)

Well the movie never specifically addressed that. Unfortunately, the movie came from the viewpoint that some movies are getting unfair ratings of NC-17 when the film makers feel they should be getting R ratings. There was also the ridiculous statement that a war movie should be rated PG instead of PG-13 because "kids shouldn't be protected against the realities of war". So this documentary wasn't getting to the facts I wanted to hear in the way I had hoped it would get there.

Nevertheless, it did show how utterly ridiculous the whole rating system is. I really can't write a better review than this portion of one I read on Netflix:

"The very nature of the uber-secretive MPAA makes any documentary on the rating system difficult and one-sided. This is because MPAA refuses to stick up for itself, as to explain itself would only make them vulnerable. And as they are already unquestionably accepted by the industry as THE standard and have the decision to enormously and financially affect 90% of movies released today, lacking any opposition, what would they have to gain? The average person believes the ratings system is mandated by some level of government anyway, why let them know who controls what millions and millions of people learn by means of movies every year?

This movie reveals the kinds of numerous fabrications, doublespeak and antidemocratic processes that can only happen when the 6 largest conglomerates of U.S. media come together and decide who gets rich and what ideas are "safe". Watch this if you are not afraid of naked people [there are many] and feel responsible enough to choose what your own children watch, and not what a bunch of white Californians with no children (ages 5-17) think they should see."

The bottom line is that it's important to watch where your children wander; you can't trust others to keep them safe, because we all have different versions of what safe means. In the movies or on a blog.

Is your blog easy to read?

2008-02-22T20:16:00.001-05:00

For me, life before kids was spent in the graphic design field. Even as a kid myself, I had a good eye for what "worked" and what didn't. These days I have a friend who tells me that I'm good at knowing where things should go on the page when I scrapbook.

Several years ago I created a website for a business for myself. Later, I took the knowledge I had gathered creating my own website, and created one for CT Homeschool Network.

Now, as the list of homeschooling blogs I read increases, I'm finding that several of the lessons I learned in web design are also important in the blogosphere. Although there are lots of blogs that will tell you how to increase visits to your blog, and how important it is to have great content to bring people back, I have yet to find one which discusses how important the look of your blog is to bringing people back. Or more specifically, how the readability of your blog determines whether people come back. So I thought I'd discuss it a bit and point some things out that most people wouldn't think of if they weren't specifically in the design field. Because regardless of content, if people can't read your blog, they won't come back.

Type should ALWAYS be on a white or VERY light background. This is because it is very important to have enough contrast between your copy and your background so people can read the copy comfortably.

Here's a sample of poor contrast. I'm not providing any links here because some of these are from blogs of people I know, and I don't want to cause any hard feelings. If you click on the sample it will enlarge and you will see how difficult it is to read. Especially because the type is not black, but gray.

There is actually a cool website out there where you can type in your blog url and it will tell you whether your copy has good contrast or not. It's here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and type your blog's address in to see whether your blog is easy on the eyes.

The body copy of your blog should NEVER be reversed. That is, white type on a black background. Or any light colored type on a dark background. Yeah, it might look cool, but only at first glance; it's really challenging to read. In the design industry it is rarely used for copy heavy work. Reversed type is strictly for headlines. It really bums me out to be only 1/2 way through a blog and have to give up because the type starts swimming before my eyes. So while black or other dark colors might be a great way to show off your photos, if you plan on writing much about them, and hope that visitors will actually read all of what you write, make your background white and your words black.

Use a sans serif font for your body copy. San serif fonts do not have the little lines on them, as in the type I have used on this blog, while serif fonts have the little lines on them, like this. (Here's a good photograph clearly showing the difference.) Newspapers and magazines use serif fonts because they are easier to read at smaller sizes in print. And although there has been some debate about it, the consensus seems to be that sans serif fonts are easier to read on monitors, with Verdana and Helvetica (Arial) being the easiest. Here's a sample of serif being used in a blog so you can decide for yourself. Keep in mind that if you are insisting on using a serif font, you should make sure it is pretty large. Smaller fonts start breaking up on screen.

Be careful of photos in the background. This one is self explanatory once you see it. And since I don't know this person, I'm posting the link. There is no denying this blog is difficult to read.

So now that I've covered the basics of readability, I thought I'd include a couple of other things, which are simply annoying and often cause me to leave.

Do not put music on your blog. First, it's really annoying. These things startle the heck out of me and if I can't find the off switch PDQ, I am so out of there. Second, and more importantly, you cannot put music on your website unless you are paying royalties to whomever owns it: "...people just don't understand the copyright laws. Period. At best, people think it's OK to play a MIDI version of "Stairway to Heaven" but wrong to play the original Led Zeppelin recording." Find this quote amidst an excellent, short, and very understandable article about music copyright laws here.

Easy on the cookies. I use Firefox to browse, and it's set up to ask me to accept cookies every time, and I'm always appalled when I find a blog out there which wants to place six, seven cookies on my computer. Excuse me, but why the heck does a BLOG want to follow me around? Okay, I'll accept a cookie from your visitor counter, but that's pretty much it.

And finally...Keep it brief. There are some blogs which ramble and ramble. Look at your stats and see how long people are staying on your blog. If it's only one minute then you have confirmed that no one read anything past the first line of each of your 30 paragraphs. Or maybe just the first eight in their entirety. If you want people to invite you back, don't overstay your welcome.

So there you have it. Ways to keep people reading your content. Do you think this will help you with your blog?

Carnival of Homeschooling

2008-02-19T19:56:00.000-05:00

Carnival of Homeschooling #112, the One Room Schoolhouse edition, has been published at Homeschool Blog Awards.

What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

I have an entry posted in this carnival. C heck it out.

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

10 Things I Love

2008-02-19T17:59:00.000-05:00

The sight of my husband coming into the house each evening when he gets home from work.
The sound of my children giggling.
Watching my children with their grandparents.
Homeschooling.
Traveling.
Spring.
Christmas morning.
Trick-or-treating.
Dancing to really loud music.
Going to rock concerts.

Wasting food

2008-02-11T20:03:00.001-05:00

While we were on vacation in Florida, we went to a restaurant called CiCi's, which is an all-you-can-eat buffet of pizza, salad, and a few desserts. It was very enjoyable, the food was pretty good, and the price was extremely reasonable.

I have to admit that although I usually finish the crust, or bone, (as my sister calls it) of pizza when I eat it at home, there were so many pizzas to choose from that I left my crusts so I'd have room for other things.

I couldn't believe though, the incredible waste that was left at a table nearby us. Two women ate with three preschool-aged children, and left this. I was so appalled that I actually took a photograph of it. (Click on it to see it larger.) This is enough food to easily feed three adults!

I remember the last time the United States hosted the Olympics, I saw a story on TV about how the world's athletes were appalled to see the way the Americans wasted food; they took way more than they could eat and threw tons of it out. The image I posted here makes me appreciate that in a whole new way.

This wasn't the only table left with an unacceptable amount of leftovers, but it was by far the worst. Our society really is so very wasteful.

When I was growing up, I was encourage to eat past the point of wanting to. I was told that there were starving people in Biafra and I should eat all my food. I believe this contributed to my now inability to stop eating when I am full, and of course, my being overweight. So I encourage my children to stop eating when they've had enough. When we go to a buffet, we always take less, knowing that if we want more we can get up and get some. I get frustrated with my kids on those very rare occasions when they take more than they can eat.

This really made me so sad. And I'm guessing the laws are like those here in CT; the restaurant is not allowed to put all that perfectly good food aside and give it to the homeless, they have to throw it out.

If I knew the names of the women who left this mess, or thought to get their car's license plate number, I'd post it here. This was disgraceful.

Why Homeschool

2008-01-15T23:52:00.000-05:00

"Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. 'We are educating people out of their creativity,' Robinson says. It's a message with deep resonance. Robinson's TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? 'Everyone should watch this."

If you haven't seen it, you should check it out. I saw it a while ago, but am glad to have seen it again; it reminds me that E is special in his own right.

Blogthings Fun...

2008-01-14T00:07:00.000-05:00

I took a test on Blogthings and found out that people like me:

People Definitely Like You

You are very well liked, and many people admire you. You are friendly, well mannered, and fun to be around. Of course, you're not perfect... but that's okay. Your friends are usually willing to accept you for who you are!

What People Don't Like About You:

People don't like that you forget them easily. No one wants to be friends with someone who doesn't remember their name!

People don't like that you are judgmental and overly opinionated. Even if you are always right, they don't like to be reminded of it!

What People Like About You:

People like that you don't gossip or talk poorly of others. They trust that you will speak positively about them too.

People like that you truly take an interest in them. Everyone likes to be liked!

People like that you can defend what you believe in calmly and rationally. You stand your ground and gain respect.

Seems pretty on target! Find out...
Do People Like You?

Check it out!

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T20:56:00.000-05:00

I am grateful for my friends who choose to know me and secretly see my snarky side and still let me be part of their lives.
...............Jamie Lee Curtis

To all of you who understand this as it relates to me, Thank You.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

10 Favorite Quotes...on being true to yourself

2007-11-19T00:30:00.000-05:00

Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.
...............Janis Joplin

I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say.
...............Ingrid Bergman

I'm tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.
...............Madonna

I'm not going to limit myself just because people won't accept the fact that I can do something else.
...............Dolly Parton

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
...............Lucille Ball

I was thought to be "stuck-up". I wasn't. I was just sure of myself. This is and always has been an unforgivable quality to the unsure.
...............Bette Davis

Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozy, and don't be afraid to hit the ball.
...............Billie Jean King

What a lovely surprise to discover how unlonely being alone can be.
...............Ellen Burstyn

It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes.
...............Sally Field

It's me who is my enemy
Me who beats me up
Me who makes the monsters
Me who strips my confidence.
...............Paula Cole

5 Favorite Links

2007-11-17T23:47:00.000-05:00

SwapaCD
How it works:

You have original, playable CDs that you do not want to keep.
You post those CDs to your "CD Tower" to offer to other members
You add funds to your SwapaCD Money account (this pays the 49-cent transaction fee for each CD you request)
After you have posted the first 10 CDs to your CD Tower, you get a "gift" credit from SwapaCD to get you started swapping. After that, you earn credits by sending out CDs to others.
You may order any available CD for 1 credit each (even multidisc or boxed sets)
If you want a CD that is not currently available, you can place it on your Wish List and we will notify you by email when it is available for you to order. You can even have it sent to you automatically when it becomes available, with no email necessary.
When a CD is requested from you, we notify you by email, provide the address for you to send it out, and even provide a wrapper!
Wrap and mail your CD.
When the requestor receives it, you earn 1 credit. Yes, you pay the postage to send out your CDs, but when you request a CD, the sender ships it to you and you pay only the 49-cent transaction fee (plus 1 CD credit)!
The CDs you receive from SwapaCD are yours. We hope that you will repost them to share with other members when you have read them, but you can certainly keep them, or give them away. Similarly, the CDs you send out to others belong to their new owners.

If you decide to give SwapaCD a try, I hope you will use the link above. Once you post your 10 CD's I get a free credit!

The Huffington Post
We don't have broadcast TV anymore. We get a really fuzzy channel 10 that none of us bother with, but nothing else. So we watch DVD's only. And my kids sometimes watch videos they borrow from the library.

I also don't get any newspapers or news magazines. So where do I get my news? The Huffington Post.

BBC News The Week in Pictures
I also get my news from the BBC. The page I love most is the week in pictures. And actually I try to look at each day in pictures. It makes the rest of the world more than just an idea.

The National Weather Service
Yeah, there are other places to get your weather. But they all get it from here.

TravelZoo
This is one mailing list you really do want to be on: "The Travelzoo Top 20 is the definitive list of the week’s best travel deals. Every week, our team researches, evaluates and recommends hundreds of airfare, hotel, vacation package, cruise and rental car deals. Only the most competitive make the Top 20. Our Test Booking Center confirms the accuracy and availability of every deal before the list goes out."

Why Homeschool?

2007-11-14T12:38:00.000-05:00

Big Brother is watching...

Surveillance cameras rolling inside our local schools is nothing new, but what's taking place inside Demarest's public schools is truly cutting edge: a live feed from more than two dozen cameras with a direct connection to the police.

Read the whole thing here.

I quit my job

2007-11-11T20:43:00.000-05:00

I've been freelancing for a woman for a several months now. She actually sent me home with a mac so I could work when she needs me to. It's been really wonderful to make some extra money for us, and I really do like what I do.

Recently though, my client discovered she has breast cancer. So she started farming out her work, so that she can have the next few weeks unencumbered. She gave me two jobs to work on. One for a local Chamber of Commerce, and another for a car dealership which does a weekly newspaper ad. I knew the next couple of weeks would be very full and somewhat stressful, but I felt I owed it to my client to be there for her. Plus, to be honest, all those billable hours would be really nice.

Well after several days of working on the Chamber of Commerce thing, my client added up the hours and decided it would be best to give the job back to them. Apparently even paying me at less than what she was billing, she would lose money. It was a combination of reasons, really. The customer made many changes which had not been included in the original quote, and passing the thing on further down the line meant communication was being lost; kind of like the telephone game. So I spent four hours on something before I was told that it needed to be completely redesigned, at which time I spent another four hours redesigning it. If my client had not been ill and distracted, I'm sure the information would have been passed on correctly the first time around, but that was not the case, and I spent a lot of time doing work which was wrong. So in the end she (rightly) decided it was best to give the job back to the agency and let them deal with it.

Then we have the car thing. These folks are completely unprofessional. I'm not going into the details of the whole thing, but the bottom line is they were supposed to have had the ad all approved so I could upload it to the newspaper by noon on Thursday, and Friday at 5:30 is when I was finally able to upload it.

So I told my client that I would not be able cover the car ad for her until she returned to working full time. It would make me a slave to the house on Thursdays and Fridays and wasn't fair to the boys. So Saturday morning she came and took her computer back so she could give it to someone who could cover for her.

My feelings are so mixed. Bottom line is that I made a choice to stay home and raise my children, and homeschool them, and to expect them to entertain themselves two days a week for the next several was not fair. Not to mention that we would have to cancel plans already made for those days.

I also feel frustrated that my client left feeling that I took way longer to do the work than she would have. I know this would not be the case had she been her normal self - instructions would not have been missed, and I certainly would not have had to spend the enormous amount of time I had to gathering all the files together from all the different places she had it stored. I only hope that when she is herself again that she is able to see that I am still valuable to her, and that the time I spent on all her work is justified. "If you always do your best, there is no way you can judge yourself." Man, this book rocks. It is my life preserver.

There is also a piece of me which feels proud on a couple of levels. First, I have my priorities straight. Second, I feel that car dealership and the agency who represented them really were unprofessional. I refuse to work with people who don't respect me, especially after I explained my circumstances to make sure they were okay with my time limitations.

Finally though, I am dealing with the whole money thing. It doesn't seem fair that society judges people on their worth according to their monetary worth. And that that viewpoint is so prevalent that it has rubbed off on me, even though consciously I know I what I contribute to my family is worth more than some extra money. If I could just get my husband on board with that...

Why Homeschool?

2007-10-05T17:46:00.000-04:00

Crap, it just gets worse and worse...

Safford [Arizona] Middle School officials did not violate the civil rights of a 13-year-old Safford girl when they forced her to disrobe and expose her breasts and pubic area four years ago while looking for a drug, according to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

Read the whole thing here.

Why Homeschool?

2007-07-09T20:42:00.000-04:00

In school, children have no First Amendment rights...

"In light of the history of American public education, it cannot seriously be suggested that the First Amendment 'freedom of speech' encompasses a student’s right to speak in public schools. Early public schools gave total control to teachers, who expected obedience and respect from students. And courts routinely deferred to schools’ authority to make rules and to discipline students for violating those rules…"
- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

Here is more of his nonsense.

Why Homeschool?

2007-07-09T10:31:00.000-04:00

Writing “I love Alex” on a school gymnasium wall brought a 12-year-old the same punishment as if she had made terrorist threats.

Here's the full story.

Valuable Sunscreen Information

2007-07-08T21:24:00.000-04:00

In a new investigation of 786 name-brand sunscreens, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found widespread evidence that many products on the market are not safe and effective, including one of every eight high-SPF sunscreens that does not protect from UVA radiation...

Read more about this very important information here.

I am shocked to find some of the sunscreens I use are not only ineffective in blocking all bad rays, but are actually hazardous to my children!

I am pleased to have found the EWG website and will be looking through it more carefully very soon.

Rosie O'Donnell

2007-06-19T00:45:00.000-04:00

I really love Rosie O'Donnell. I've liked her ever since she had her own talk show. I'm not one to watch TV much during the afternoon hours, but I'd catch it when I can. Then when she joined The View I actually started taping it (yes VHS, no TiVo here). I'd watch the episode from the day before as I got dressed each morning.

Rosie did a terrific job holding her own against Donald Trump. That whole thing was a huge fiasco. It started here with Rosie just being Rosie:

And this was the result:

Here was Rosie's response:

More from Donald:

and more:

and finally Barbara Walters chimed in:

Rosie stayed composed through the whole thing and Donald lost it. I have to throw this one in. It's off topic, but I saw it on SNL live when it showed, and it's hysterical, and Donald Trump deserves it:

Anyhow, back to the fact that I love her, and I was really sad to hear the announcement that she was not going to be returning to The View. She was a real asset and brought attention to the war when others would not. Also I felt that the format of having Elisabeth the Bush cult-member, and Rosie debating, was a great way to show the reality of what is happening out there compared to the crap GW is dishing out.

It was sad for me to watch her slowly lose her composure over the last few weeks. And I am very sad that she has left the show. I actually had the argument with Elisabeth on tape and was flabbergasted to watch it. Check it out for yourself.

I read Rosie's book Find Me. It's a fabulous book and made me fall in love with her even more. It's a terrific read whether you are a fan or not. The story she tells is definitely worth reading. And it let me in on why she was really leaving the show. As much as many of us love her and what and who she represents, she really is just a person hiding behind a mask.

Perhaps that's why I love her so much. She's me on national television: a fat woman with a big heart who grew up in New York and keeps sticking her foot in her mouth.

As I read the book I kept folding corners of pages over to return to. Who would've thought that Rosie O'Donnell would have quotes worth remembering?

Two of my favorites:

"There are things that happen in your own life that you'll never resolve; you just keep shaping and reshaping them like a sculptor."

"Fat is a protector; anyone can tell you that. I didn't like being 'thin'. I felt like people could come too close."

The book is full of them. It's so easy to see why people love her. And why so many keep in touch.

Why Homeschool?

2007-06-15T16:43:00.001-04:00

Bullies.

Why Homeschool?

2007-06-12T10:08:00.000-04:00

The video and sound fall out of sync along the way, so just listen.

The Four Agreements

2007-06-07T00:11:00.000-04:00

I had been frustrated with some of the relationships in my life the last few weeks. So when I joined Paperback Swap I put The Four Agreements on my wish list. Somehow, even though there were two other people wishing for that book ahead of me, the book was sent to me, and from someone in the next town over, so it arrived in two days. It's amazing how when we really need something it shows up.

This book is like a bible to me. It's like therapy without having to spend years getting to the crux of the matter. I can't speak highly enough of it. I had borrowed it from a friend and read it once before, but owning it is great. I can fold over pages and go back and read my favorite passages over and over.

I'm going to list some of my favorite passages here. The ones that are helping me put myself back in order this time around.

"Being impeccable with your word is not using the word against yourself. If I see you in the street and I call you stupid, it appears that I'm using the word against you. but really I'm using my word against myself, because you're going to hate me for this, and your hating me is not good for me. Therefore, if I get angry and with my word send all that emotional poison to you, I'm using the word against myself."

"Your opinion is nothing but your point of view. It is not necessarily true."

"Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world."

"Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know it is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me. Others are going to have their own belief system, so nothing they think about me is really about me, but it is about them."

"If you get mad at me, I know you are dealing with yourself. I am the excuse for you to get mad."

"Humans are addicted to suffering at different levels and to different degrees, and we support each other in maintaining these addictions. Humans agree to help each other suffer. If you have the need to be abused you will find it easy to be abused by others. Likewise, if you are with people who need to suffer, something in you makes you abuse them. It is as if they have a note on their back that says 'Please kick me'. They are asking for justification for their suffering. Their addiction to suffering is nothing but an agreement that is reinforced every day."

"If others are not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you."

"If others feel they have to change you, that means they don't love you just the way you are. So why be with someone if you're not the way he or she wants you to be?"

"If you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself."

These passages speak to me on different levels. I can see myself as both the person thinking others cause her pain, and the person thinking she causes others'. It has been a huge weight off my shoulders to know I'm not responsible for what other people think, even in response to something I may have done. It's also making it a lot easier to "forgive" people for things, because I now know that what they did was not because of me.

I can only control how I look at things. And doing a good job of it makes life so much more heartening. I know that through all of my challenges in all of my relationships, I have truly tried my best. My best to be a good friend, my best to open up and let people in, and my best to use words to express myself as clearly as I'm capable of. So I therefore can't judge myself. And that's a huge load off my mind.

I have been living at peace for the last week or so and it feels really good. I hope to stay here for a long time. And hopefully it will be easier now that I own the book.

I have even made my other blog public again.

5 Favorite Links

2007-05-31T00:26:00.000-04:00

Brainy Quote
I love words. And quotes especially. This is my favorite quote page. They are arranged intelligently too. The only thing I don't like is that they have a preview that you have to click through to get to the entire quote, rather than showing all the quotes on one page, which if you have a decent internet connection, is much faster. Bu they are organized really well here.

Dictionary.com
When my computer is on, which it is pretty much all day, looking things up online is so much faster than dragging out my several pound, six inch thick Webster. This site gives meanings from several different dictionaries, which I really like.

Paperback Swap is a terrific way to get rid of books you don't want, while finding some that maybe you do. I was wary of it at first, because frankly I am looking to get rid of books and not necessarily looking to get new ones, but now that I've joined, I'm really enjoying it.

The idea is that you give away books, and pay for the shipping, while earning credits to get books from other people who pay for the shipping.

When you first sign up you need to list nine books, and for that you get three free credits. Once people start requesting your books, you get one credit for each one you send out. This has already worked for me just in the fact that I got a copy of The Four Agreements simply by signing up. I'm also looking forward to receiving a copy of one of Rosie O'Donnell's books (Find Me) any day now and just received a book called Intuitive Tarot: Discovering and Reinforcing the Power of Your Intuition : Using the Tarot As a Tool.

One thing to watch out for: books that are heavy and cost a lot to mail. I got caught spending more than I wanted to for the first book I had to mail. So I weigh all my books now before listing them, so I don't have to spend more than about $1.50 to mail any of them.

If you decide to join, please use the link above; I will get a free credit once you list your first nine books. Alternatively, you could just go to the site and list Love2BHomeschoolers as the person who referred you. Thanks!

Netflix
I check my Netflix queue almost daily. We are currently participating in the program where we can have three movies out at a time, for $17.99 a month, and I can return them and get new ones as many times as I'd like within each month. Right now we have out:

1. Animal Face-Off: Lion vs. Tiger
"Ever wondered what would happen if two of the world's most feared animals went head to head in a battle? The Animal Face-Off series aims to find out. After expertly designed replicas of the animals are created to mirror exact areas of strength and weakness, the two cyber-creatures come together for a crucial showdown. In this episode, two of the jungle's fiercest predators - the lion and the tiger - duke it out to see who comes out on top."

2. Extreme Engineering: Subways in America
"Gothamites who travel on the subway beneath New York City every day have long taken the mass transit system for granted. But in this installment of the popular Discover Channel series, a closer examination reveals exactly how masterful the transportation grid truly is. Built in the late 19th century, the subterranean rail line was showing its age until the city embarked on a large-scale, intricate refurbishment project."

3. Unsolved History: Ninjas
"Modern-day ninja Stephen Hayes and a team of historians delve deep into the 16th century for a look at the storied Japanese assassins, who were as feared as they were misunderstood. Part of Discovery Channel's "Unsolved History" series, which takes a detailed forensic approach to some of history's most vexing mysteries via a painstaking examination of photographs, artifacts and interviews from experts and eyewitnesses."

As you can see, Netflix has a great assortment of documentaries, which is what we mostly use it for. Here's a list of some of what we've rented in the last few months:

Is Wal-Mart Good for America?: Frontline
Animal Face-Off: Saltwater Croc vs. Great White Shark
Thomas L. Friedman Reporting: The Other Side of Outsourcing
This Is America, Charlie Brown
Ghosts of Rwanda: Frontline
Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?
Raising Cain
Alaska's Inside Passage
Extreme Engineering: Container Ships
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Historical Perspective
Terrorstorm: A History of Government Sponsored Terrorism
Thomas L. Friedman Reporting: Does Europe Hate Us?
100 Greatest Discoveries: Disc 1
Secrets of Lost Empires 2: Medieval Siege
Modern Marvels: Aquariums: Windows on a Watery World
History of the Chopper
Modern Marvels: The Great Wall of China
Robosapiens
P.T. Barnum
Alexander Graham Bell: Voice of Invention
The Viking Deception: Nova
Christopher Columbus: Explorer of the New World
Modern Marvels: Monster Trucks
Nature: Sharks
Extreme Engineering: Boston's Big Dig
Benjamin Franklin

My boys are always (well, almost always) willing to sit and watch something they would otherwise not sit still to read about, so I can slip some good "learning" in there without their knowing about it. I myself enjoy watching along with them, and sometimes get things just for myself (i.e. Thomas L. Friedman Reporting: The Other Side of Outsourcing). Yes, I could go around to libraries all over the state to find some of this stuff, but it's so much easier having it arrive in my mailbox.

They also have cheaper plans available:
2 at-a-time (Unlimited) for $14.99
1 at-a-time (Unlimited) for $9.99
1 at-a-time (limited to 2 a month) for $4.99

And more expensive ones where you can have more dvd's out too.

LuminociTees.com
Okay this is my business and I'm making some changes. I've decided to switch to Cafe Press. My store is still under construction, but I hope to have it done soon. The link above for my own store will be good for a while longer, but when the contract for my server space expires in September, I'm not going to renew.

I really enjoyed creating my website. However, I created the whole thing in FrontPage using frames, and later learned that frames can't be read by Google correctly. So paying for an ad for "Human Milk for Human Babies" on Google would bring you to my home page, rather than my page on Human Milk. Or if it did manage to bring you to the right page, this is what you'd see (no navigation bars). So spending money on advertising was pointless, since people didn't want to click on "Human Milk for Human Babies" in Google Ads and then have to click through my whole website to find that page. Argh.

Creating that website took me hours and hours. Hours that I have had trouble finding to do the whole thing over again. So there the site sits with no advertising, and no business. Wasting my money to keep it posted. Argh.

So I've decided to go ahead and try out a Cafe Press store. It was a very difficult decision to make, because I feel their prices are high (truly they are charging me retail prices to add money onto to charge my customer even more) and so my mark-up will be considerably less. My demographic is stay-at-home moms with most times limited income, so I don't want to charge too much. My personal store was cheaper than the Cafe Press store will be. And my markup will be so low I will probably have to struggle just to break even.

On the upside, I can advertise it the same way I would my own site, so hopefully once I get it all up I can concentrate on marketing. Also it will be really nice to be able to get rid of the dedicated printer (with archival inks) and heat press I have to keep around in case I make a sale. Not to mention the boxes and boxes of inventory I have of shirts to print when somebody orders one. These things take up space which I could definitely use more effectively. And finally, I will be able to sell bumper stickers, which I have not been able to do from home. (I couldn't find a vinyl which could go through my printer.)

So although it really was a difficult decision, I am decided. After I get all my artwork formatted for Cafe Press, get it uploaded, choose items for my new store, and arrange everything on the new site in a cohesive manner, I'm going to print up and adhere designs on all of my inventory and try to sell it all on ebay. Or maybe I can consign some of it. Or donate it. Or whatever. Then I'll sell the printer and heat press too. I will reclaim a 4' x 6' area of my basement. Woo hoo!

Please take a look at my new store, and feel free to send me your thoughts. I will certainly update you all here when it is done.

10 Favorite Quotes...on friendship

2007-05-29T11:28:00.000-04:00

Sometimes we put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
...............Anonymous

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.
...............Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.
...............George Eliot

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
...............Henry Ford

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.
...............Alice Walker

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
...............Ralph Waldo Emerson

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
...............Mother Teresa

An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.
...............Buddha

True friends stab you in the front.
...............Oscar Wilde

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
...............William Blake

Oh man...

2007-05-24T21:51:00.000-04:00

Check this out.

Where the hell is Matt?

2007-05-21T22:37:00.000-04:00

If you haven't seen this yet, you really need to check it out. It makes my heart sing every time I watch it, which I do pretty often.

Excerpts from his website:

Matt is a 30-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut who used to think that all he ever wanted to do in life was make and play videogames. He achieved this goal pretty early and enjoyed it for a while, but eventually realized there might be other stuff he was missing out on. In February of 2003, he quit his job in Brisbane, Australia and used the money he'd saved to wander around the planet until it ran out. He made this site so he could keep his family and friends updated about where he is.
A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt the idea of dancing everywhere he went and recording it on his camera. This turned out to be a very good idea. Now Matt is quasi-famous as "That guy who dances on the internet."

Matt was a very poor student and never went to college. When he got older, he was pleased to discover that no one actually cares. Matt doesn't want to imply that college is bad or anything. He's just saying is all. There's other ways to fill your head.

Matt also has a blog about all his travels. Go to his site and read it.

10 Favorite Quotes...on learning

2007-05-18T22:06:00.000-04:00

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, "Certainly I can!". Then get busy and find out how to do it.
...............Theodore Roosevelt

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
...............Pablo Picasso

A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.
...............Chinese Proverb

If you think you can or think you can't, you're right.
...............Henry Ford

Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!
...............Louisa May Alcott

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
...............Confucius

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
...............Albert Einstein

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
...............Socrates

Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
...............Oscar Wilde

If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him.
...............John Holt

The New 7 Wonders of the World

2007-05-18T00:25:00.000-04:00

Loss of electricity prevented me from posting last night. I threw out a bunch of uncooked chicken from the fridge, but otherwise we are okay.

Vote for what you think the new 7 Wonders of the World should be. You're running out of time...

The commonly known Seven Ancient Wonders of the World were all man-made monuments, selected by Philon of Byzantium in 200 B.C. His selection of wonders was essentially a travel guide for fellow Athenians, and the stunning sites were all located around the Mediterranean basin, the then-known world.

The monuments he chose, to be remembered in perpetuity, were:

The Lighthouse of Alexandria
The Temple of Artemis
The Statue of Zeus
The Colossus of Rhodes
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
The Pyramids of Egypt

All were built between 2,500 B.C. and 200 B.C. Today, only the spectacular Pyramids at Giza in Egypt remain. Now, just as Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games in 1896 with his modern version of the competition, New7Wonders founder Bernard Weber is seeking to revive the concept of the 7 Wonders with this ambitious global campaign: the New 7 Wonders of the World. The key difference is that, this time around, they will not be chosen by one man, but rather by millions of people all over the world.

The new wonders that are selected will be the people’s choices and they will be drawn from the earliest time that humans walked upon the earth up through the year 2000.

It is, therefore, possible that the only survivor of the original 7 Wonders of the World, the Pyramids at Giza, could be chosen for a second time, taking them well into a third millennium of global fame!

The New 7 Wonders campaign was launched in 2000 by Swiss film producer, author and aviator Bernard Weber to select the seven new Wonders of the World via the first global voting campaign. Half the profits from the campaign will be donated to global good causes in monument and building restoration and preservation.

Visit www.new7wonders.com for more information.

Why Homeschool?

2007-05-15T22:40:00.000-04:00

Perhaps because we can't trust the idiots who would be in charge of our children?

Sun May 13, 5:28 PM ET

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables...parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged...

Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation "involved poor judgment."

I keep reading more and more of these ridiculous stories. Here's another one:

Sunday, May 13, 2007

CHICAGO — A girl and her grandparents have sued the Chicago Board of Education, alleging that a substitute teacher showed the R-rated film "Brokeback Mountain" in class.

The lawsuit claims that Jessica Turner, 12, suffered psychological distress after viewing the movie in her 8th grade class at Ashburn Community Elementary School last year.

No matter what your beliefs are about homosexuality, showing any R rated movie to an elementary class is asking for trouble!

It's downright scary that parents are expected to leave their children in the hands of morons like these. I feel so fortunate that I don't have to.

A Homeschooling Calendar

2007-05-14T19:50:00.000-04:00

I started this tradition with my younger son about five years ago when he was five years old. At the time I was a newly confirmed homeschooler, and still considering unschooling, so I was constantly looking for fun and non-coercive ways for him to practice writing. Plus every morning he would wake up and ask me "what are we doing today?" So I combined the two and came up with a calendar for him to make for himself. He loved it so much that he continued for two years before he decided he didn't need it anymore. But about two years ago I started again with my younger son, who had then turned five years old and began asking "what are we doing today?"

We start with a large blotter calendar, you know the kind that typically go on the top of people's desks? I get our at Staples, because they are the only ones I have been able to find without the information already in there, and no lines running across the whole thing for notes (which we find very distracting, since we don't use words to fill in our activities).

I use a pencil to write in the name of the month, and the numbers, and then my son traces over that information with a marker. Then we head downstairs to the computer and find clip art to represent each thing we are doing that month. So we have garbage cans for Tuesdays to remind us to take the trash out, birthday cakes for parties, soccer balls (with shooting flames, no less) for soccer practice and games, a small stack of books for library day, and so on. I am blessed to have a color printer to print these things out on.

My son and I practice using scissors by cutting out the clip art, and then together we glue them onto the calendar where each thing belongs. Every day now, he can check the calendar for what we are doing, and he no longer needs to paste Daddy on every Saturday and Sunday, because he knows the days he stays home without needing a reminder.

This has been a terrific way for both of my boys to learn the days of the week (still working on months though), and given them good practice in writing and cutting. It also gives them a sense of security in knowing how their day looks without having to ask.

This has remained a non-coercive activity since we began. In fact, we finally just finished the month of May today, which is what prompted me to blog about it. For the last 13 days the pieces have been laying on the kitchen floor underneath where the calendar hangs. It just occurred to my younger son though, that he wants to start counting down the days to his birthday party (11).

Scholastic Books

2007-05-11T20:23:00.000-04:00

I can remember I was the only student in my class at St. Luke's school, from 2nd through 6th grade, who ordered every single time my teacher handed out those Scholastic flyers to the class. Not only did I order every time, but I often came home with a dozen books at a time. Up until my parents got divorced, my mother would let me order as many of those books as I wanted, as long as I promised to read them all.

Well imagine my delight when I found out that homeschoolers can order from Scholastic too. Just go to their website and order a catalog for the grades you'd like, then place an order once you receive it. It's that simple.

Many homeschool groups collect orders and place them as a group. I can't understand why the individuals don't place orders themselves though. Perhaps their group collector neglected to tell them they can, because they themselves want to collect all the points for each order? One point is awarded for each dollar spent, and traded for free merchandise in the flyers. Often there are specials where purchasers can earn 3x (for example) their bonus points by purchasing a certain amount.

So I can see why the group collector would benefit from a group order, but there is no benefit to the individual at all. There is no minimum order, no tax, and no shipping. So you can order one book for 95¢, have it shipped right to your door, and get one point for yourself to use later. Actually, the only negative thing about individual orders is that the catalog only comes in sets of 50 flyers. It's a one inch thick thing which is pretty wasteful since I only need one flyer. On the other hand it is recyclable where I live.

I also like that I can save up a few months worth of flyers and order all at once online (instead of by mail), which can only be done without a fee if $20 is spent at one time. This way I get my books, my Scholastic points, and my Disney Visa points!

I've ordered many things from Scholastic over the last several years. In addition to the obvious books, we've also ordered computer games, models of body parts like an eye and a heart, games like pizza pie fractions and car math, and activities like a book of calculator games with a calculator. Many a stocking-stuffer came from Scholastic.

One of the other fantastic things about Scholastic is their warehouse sales, which they have a few times a year. They literally open up the warehouse and clear out the stuff. Everything is typically 50% off listed price.

I went to one in Danbury today, and spent $200. I came home with enough Klutz kits to give for birthday party presents for probably two years. I also got several new Christmas books, since I'm getting sick of our old ones, several computer games, two hard cover copies of two books by the authors of The Quiltmaker's Gift, (one of each to keep and one of each for gifts), grammar and algebra books to tuck away for whenever someone asks about those things, board books to give to my nephew for his first birthday, and a really cool book called Scholastic Encyclopedia Of The Presidents And Their Times, which will be great to refer to with my boys, but I really bought for myself to sit down and read. All this plus a several books for both of my boys.

The last time I went to a Scholastic warehouse sale was three years ago when I spent $300. So I'm figuring the $200 worth of stuff I bought today ought to keep me settled for two years. It's hard not to over shop there, but for once I think I did a good job of sticking to gifts, and reference books and computer games which will be good to keep around. I went very very lightly on the fiction since that stuff is easily borrowed from the library.

I was grateful for the table they keep near the registers, where I could go through my grocery cart, weed out the stuff I really didn't need, and simply dump it all off there without feeling badly about making a mess.

The sale in Connecticut has just started, and goes till next Saturday. You can print out a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase.

If you haven't already checked out all Scholastic has to offer, I hope I've convinced you to give it a try!

The making of a conscientious objector

2007-05-10T20:49:00.000-04:00

I originally posted this on my other blog back in January, but want to re-post it for my new readers here. After reading it last time my mother chuckled, telling me that she didn't think I was really giving R (10 years old) a balanced view of both sides; that it is obvious mine is being represented more heavily.

So be it; my view is the right one.

*****************************************

January 2007

This morning R came into my room as I was watching This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and started watching with me. There were no images of war, so I allowed him to stay and listen. He watched for a few minutes, left, and returned during The Chris Matthews Show, which seemed to keep his attention more.

This led to a 10 minute conversation about sending more troops to Iraq, how Bush hoodwinked the country into the war in the first place, how the Patriot Act is turning him into a dictator, whether Iraq would be better off with us forcing our view of a good government on them vs. leaving now and letting them fall into civil war, how we can get Bush out of office, and whether or not U.S. citizens can be dragged into fighting in the war if they don't want to go. He was full of intelligent questions; I was, quite frankly, surprised.

I have been wanting to start taking him to rallies, and talking to him about the realities of war, so that I can start making a Conscientious Objector file for him. I think it's really important that I start doing that soon, but I've been concerned about exposing him to the stress of war. I know for myself that keeping up on it often makes me feel powerless, and I've been concerned about how it would effect his psyche. So I've been dragging my feet on it. But today convinced me it's time to get moving. I'm going to pick up some of the age appropriate books out there about war to read with him, and maybe I'll check out what Netflix has to offer on the subject too. I'll definitely be starting to document conversations like the one we had today.

R feels that we should definitely not be sending more troops to Iraq. Especially more men than those that live in the whole town of Cheshire. He also feels that we should totally withdraw from Iraq and let the people fall into a civil war. He believes that we should not be dictating to anyone how they should run their country, and we should let the Iraqis fight for the government they want to have, themselves. He thinks that we should get rid of the Patriot Act, and that George Bush is dangerous, and we should try to get rid of him too.

I am very proud of R for seeing things the way he does. When I was answering all of his questions, I was careful to give both points of view (McCain was being interviewed on TV at the time we were speaking) to make sure he would formulate his own opinions, and not just accept mine as his own. He is a bright boy and understands how wrong war is. If anyone would actually show the realities of the war on TV, I'd probably let him watch. He is getting old enough to understand the world beyond his up-till-now small one.

More on unschooling

2007-05-09T20:38:00.000-04:00

This is something I wrote on my other blog today:

Playgroup was especially fun today because three new families joined us...

Funny, two of the moms already knew me from the photo on my blogs...Apparently there was a big discussion about my blog regarding Radical Unschooling vs. Self-Directed Learning [on one of the unschooling lists]. It seems that I don't even have to be on the lists to have my "wrong" way of doing things criticized - lol! Anyway a few of us had our own interesting discussion regarding the topic, and I can add more people to the list of those who are afraid to post their real feelings on the lists. They suggested I started my own for those of us who are not comfortable with the extremism.

I considered doing this quite a bit. I even went ahead and created it earlier today. It was called Not Radical Unschoolers. But moderating a list is not something I have the time to do, so I then deleted it. I do think there is real a need for it though. Unfortunately this sort of list is going to need a moderator who is paying close attention, and I can't be the one to do that right now. I'll join though if someone else creates it :-)

By the way, I'm moderating comments now. Not interested in providing soap boxes for anyone except myself :-)

Magazine Subscriptions

2007-05-08T19:39:00.000-04:00

At one time I had about eight different magazines coming to my house each month, in addition to my weekly Newsweek. I had a few which I personally subscribed to, and a few which were gifts. Well to say it got overwhelming is an understatement. So when they all expired I did not renew any of them, and I've been subscription-free for about eight months now.

The problem is that I really do miss some of them. I find that I am attracted to non-fiction writing, and magazines are a good way to learn about a lot of things. So I've been borrowing magazines from the library the last few times we've gone. This way I don't have the stress of a whole pile to get through, and have to "get rid of them" on due date whether I've read them or not, which is kind of liberating.

I thought I'd take some time to blog about a few of my favorites.

Life Learning Magazine
is definitely high on my list. From their website:

Let Life Learning help you discover how to employ self-directed, life-based learning in your own life and/or that of your child.

Read all about how other people just like you and your children have learned without being taught...what helps and what hinders, and what they have achieved in their lives as a result. Laugh, cry and identify with parents who are helping themselves and their children learn from the real world...and learning a lot about themselves along the way.

Think about how we are limited by a society that believes in coercive education...and how we can transcend those limits in our daily lives. Find support and reassurance for interest-based, learner-directed education and non-coercive parenting.

I'm bummed that my local library does not carry this magazine, and am thinking of donating one to them. All of the homeschooling magazines they offer are Christian based, which is pretty annoying.

One of the cool things about this magazine is that the radical vs. self-directed debate happens within its pages. The editors are radicals but the letters to the editors are filled with people who question it. It makes for interesting reading, and has certainly helped me define myself as an unschooler.

Ode
is another one of my favorites, and another one that my library doesn't carry. From the Ode website:

Ode is an independent magazine about the people and ideas that are changing the world.

Sometimes it’s difficult to see beyond the war, poverty, exploitation and pollution that the mainstream media use to fill our view of the world. But there is more to life. There are other stories to report. Stories of countless initiatives being launched around the globe by people devoted to justice, respect and equality. Stories that bridge the gap between thinking and doing, between rage and hope, and the painful gap between the rich and poor – and thus build peace and sustainability. That is the news that Ode promises to deliver. By reading Ode you connect to a network of positive change and inspiration. Ode points the way to knowing better, doing better and feeling better.

Ode publishes ‘the stories that are different from the ones we are brainwashed to believe’ (Arundhati Roy). Ode challenges us and invites us to change. We realise that change starts with information. We can only make a choice to change things for the better when we learn how it can be done. Similarly, we can only change our behaviour when we understand the harmful effects of what we do. Ode teaches and inspires us, helps us see how every one of us can contribute to a more just and sustainable world.

It was really nice to read about some of the good stuff happening in the world, and when I have more time in my life I will definitely get back to that one.

Simple Scrapbooks
was one I enjoyed quite a bit. I got into scrapbooking when I bought an empty scrapbook at Disney World in 2004, and caught the bug big-time. I wanted a magazine which would help me learn about techniques and tips, but everything out there really focused on the embellishments. I commented about this to a scrapbook store owner while visiting my mom in Maine, and she suggested Simple Scrapbooks, because the focus was on the pictures.

I can't find any sort of "About Us" info on their site to paste here, but they do tend to write things with the beginner in mind.

The problem was that they too, finally succombed to the one-picture-on-a-page mentality, and lost the philosphy of scrapping every day moments. They do tend to use less embellishments than other magazines, but still the focus has become the "art" rather than preserving mountains of memories.

Mothering Magazine
which is the bi-monthly bible of attachment parenting. They are the folks who gave me the courage to not vaccinate my kids. From their website:

Mothering celebrates the experience of parenthood as worthy of one's best efforts and fosters awareness of the immense importance and value of parenthood and family life in the development of the full human potential. As a readers' magazine, we recognize parents as the experts and wish to provide truly helpful information upon which parents can base informed choices.

Mothering is like no other publication. We are an original. Born in 1976 out of the need for the natural family community to learn about raising healthy children, Mothering was the birthplace of the natural family lifestyle.

Read in more than 65 countries, Mothering is the only independently owned, family living magazine in the world. We address contemporary health, personal, environmental, medical, and lifestyle issues in an upbeat, intelligent, compassionate, and courageous way.

Each issue contains philosophical inspiration and practical advice about family living. Topics are as diverse as circumcision, vaccinations, organic foods, childhood illnesses, home birth, ear infections, parenting teens, web site information, midwifery, and homeopathy.

Mothering is a family. We have an independent editorial spirit unmatched in the industry and a readership that is unmatched in responsiveness. Readers who read Mothering share many of the same values. Nowhere else will you find such proactive, passionate, and highly educated readers. In the pages of Mothering you will find an environment of credibility, trust, and authority.

Not much more can be said about this one. I picked up two past issues from the library today, and will blog about a story I read regarding kids playing with guns, soon.

Friends

2007-05-07T22:51:00.000-04:00

A while ago I took a casual survey of some of my friends and asked them what makes a friend a "good" friend. The best answer I got was "loyalty". After hearing the rest, mulling it over, and digesting some recent experiences, I have to agree; loyalty is the best thing you can have in a friend.

Well tonight I had dinner with my most loyal friend.

Over a giant margarita.

It was great.

10 Favorite Quotes...on religion

2007-05-04T23:50:00.000-04:00

The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.
...............George Washington

Question with boldness even the existance of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
...............Thomas Jefferson

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
...............Benjamin Franklin

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
...............Albert Einstein

So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would neither be created nor destroyed it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?
...............Stephen Hawking

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.
...............Sigmund Freud

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
...............Mahatma Gandhi

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
...............Karl Marx

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
...............Napoleon Bonaparte

God made me an atheist. Who are you to question his wisdom?
...............Unknown

56th National Day of Prayer

2007-05-03T20:18:00.000-04:00

I learned about the National Day of Prayer through a little blurb in my local newspaper last week. My town actually had an "event", which took place "at noon in the Council Chambers at Cheshire Town Hall. The theme this year is 'America Unite in Prayer".

Well to say I was surprised to read this is putting it mildly. So I did a Google search, since it was labeled as "national", and found an entire website dedicated to it. A scan of the "About Us" page had some interesting information:

Who We Are

We are the Judeo-Christian expression of the National Day of Prayer which was established in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman.

What We Do

The National Day of Prayer Task Force exists to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership.

"To intercede for America and its leadership?" The word intercede surprised me in this usage, so to be sure I was understanding it correctly I looked it up:

in·ter·cede:
1. to act or interpose in behalf of someone in difficulty or trouble, as by pleading or petition.
2. to attempt to reconcile differences between two people or groups; mediate.

Yeah, I am understanding it correctly, and not liking it at all.

What is it about this country's inability to follow it's own rules about the separation of church and state? I watched a movie called Does Europe Hate Us? and one of the things they do laugh at us about is our inability to do just that. It is becoming incredibly annoying to me.

But I wonder, would it be as annoying to me if I myself believed in God?

A couple of years ago, Newsweek had a terrific article on its My Turn page. I looked all over and tried to find a link to post here, but with no luck. The article was about how people can't deal with atheism. Every religion dictates a tolerance for other religions, but most people I have spoken to can't deal with no religion.

Years ago I was part of a playgroup where one of the moms was a Mormon. She was a lovely woman who I enjoyed spending time with, and was actually the person who introduced me to the idea of homeschooling. Although supercilious statements like "Catholics believe...Mormons know..." popped up too much to be missed, she was otherwise very accepting of the other women in the group of different religions, but she was on a constant quest to help me define mine. She just could not deal with the fact that I did not identify with some religious group, and even found a website where I could take a test to help. Since I refused to take it, she actually took it for me, and stopped harassing me once she could label me as being most closely aligned with Buddhism. (I have recently taken it myself and find that I am evenly matched between Buddhism and Paganism.)

An article on the Newsweek website states:
In a recent [2006] NEWSWEEK Poll, Americans said they believed in God by a margin of 92 to 6—only 2 percent answered "don't know"—and only 37 percent said they'd be willing to vote for an atheist for president.

Of course this is exactly why so many people have such issues of acceptance when it come to people who do not believe in God; comparatively speaking there are so few of us. But to actually not vote for someone because of a lack of religion?

Perhaps it is this intolerance which makes me increasingly intolerant of the state of affairs in our government. Yes, I believe that "under God" should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. Yes, I believe that "In God We Trust" should be removed from our money. I believe that placing one's hand on the bible to swear in a court of law is ridiculous, and I believe that moments of silence in schools should be banned. Because all of this assumes a belief in God.

Freedom of religion means all religions. And it should also mean no religion.

Raw Milk

2007-05-02T21:18:00.000-04:00

Monday night I saw a story on World News Tonight about Raw Milk. You can see it for yourself here. Raw milk is unpasteurized, unhomogenized, and "illegal to sell in 23 states". Well here in Connecticut, it is legal - thank goodness. And my family is among the "devotees".

I first learned about raw milk from a friend, who had read the book Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats.

This friend is one who is great at influencing people, so I eventually read it myself. I'm glad I did because it totally changed my life, and those of my family.

The book is based on the findings of Weston A. Price. "In his search for the causes of dental decay and physical degeneration that he observed in his dental practice, he turned from test tubes and microscopes to unstudied evidence among human beings. Dr. Price sought the factors responsible for fine teeth among the people who had them- the isolated 'primitives'...Wherever he went, Dr. Price found that beautiful straight teeth, freedom from decay, stalwart bodies, resistance to disease and fine characters were typical of primitives on their traditional diets, rich in essential food factors."

My grandmother was 94 years old when she died. She came to the U.S. from Hungary, and ate a very high fat diet throughout her life, including cooking in bacon fat and lard and using lots of butter. So when I read the book's recommendations for eating lots of healthy fats, the information felt right.

My friend became a full-time crusader for the Weston A. Price Foundation, and started a chapter here in Connecticut. One of the things she did in helping to convince people that this philosophy makes sense, is to invite people to her home to watch a PowerPoint presentation about it. During that presentation, which I later had my husband attend so he would understand where I was coming from, there was significant discussion on raw milk. Basically what was done was to show what is done to milk during the pasteurization and homogenization process. And it was enough to convince me that it is totally unnatural. Here is a great article on Raw Milk vs. Pasteurized Milk.

Now that I've been convinced of the benefits of raw milk there is no going back. I am actually spending $8 a gallon, and I do not permit my children to drink "regular" milk when raw is not available. Just the idea of it grosses me out.

Check out the link and watch the story. And then read the truth.

Carnival of Homeschooling #70

2007-05-01T22:50:00.000-04:00

Carnival of Homeschooling #70: the Yes, No, Yes! edition has been published at Dewey's Treehouse.

What is a blog carnival?

"A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every Monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.

"There is so much stuff in the blog-o-sphere, just finding interesting stuff is hard. If there is a carnival for a topic you are interested in, following that carnival is a great way to learn what bloggers are saying about that topic. If you are blogging on that topic, the carnival is the place to share your work with like-minded bloggers."

This is the first time I have submitted something to this carnival.
Please check it out.

Here is more information on blog carnivals.
Here is information on how to make a submission of your own.

"1/3 of all homes has a gun in it"

2007-04-30T22:20:00.000-04:00

This according to Sam Donaldson during on an appearance on This Week with George Stephanopoulos the week before last.

Well I must say that I found that statement more than a little disconcerting. I am going to have to be more aware of checking in with parents in homes where my children are visiting. People used to roll their eyes at me when I asked them if they owned a gun, but that was fine. It's been a while since I've had to ask anyone, but as our circle of friends expands and we are visiting new homes, I need to start being aware again.

I think I need to have a conversation with my kids about the topic too. It's been a while since my ten year-old and I talked about it, and I've never talked about it with my six year-old at all.

I don't have a problem with people owning guns, as long as they are tucked away someplace where children can't get them. However I do have a problem with people being able to legally get automatic weapons. Rosie O'Donnell, who I am a big fan of, spoke about her efforts regarding gun control on The View after the Virginia Tech shooting. She insists that fighting the NRA is impossible because of the powerful lobbyists they can afford. I have to agree.

One look at the NRA website is actually pretty scary. Sorry, not providing that link.

Sharing Breastfeeding

2007-04-29T19:31:00.000-04:00

On the Today show on Friday was an interesting story about wet nurses. They definitely covered the ew factor, but also had a woman on who had wet-nursed 40 babies. She spoke about how milk banks pasteurize their milk, so many of the live antibodies which breast milk is so renowned for, are killed by the process. They also had a La La Leche League Leader there who clearly stated that LLL does not approve of the practice.

Well I'm glad I'm not an LLL Leader anymore, because that means I get to share my own opinion!

I know someone who hurt herself shortly after giving birth, and had trouble breastfeeding. She was thrilled to have a sister who was able to do it for her, until she had recovered enough to hold her baby without fear of dropping her.

I also had the privilege of experiencing this myself. I was babysitting for my friend's toddler, who took about one minute to nurse herself to sleep, after I offered. I was so happy to be able to respond to her need in a way that was so natural to me.

While watching Today, my older son (ten years old) came into the room and started watching with me. He feels it's a bad idea because then the baby will start bonding with the wrong person.

I agree that a breastfed baby bonds with the person the breasts are attached to. But on the other hand, we all know of children who are more attached to their day care providers than their own parents. Many people shrug that off as being a necessary evil. So why isn't a baby's first food seen the same way?

Personally, if I were not able to breastfeed, and money wasn't an issue, I would probably try to find someone to pay to pump for me and give me the fresh milk to bottle feed. I appreciate the value of breast milk, but would also be terrified of my children bonding with someone else more than me.

That's why I'm a stay-at-home mom.

And that's another reason why we homeschool.

Respect

2007-04-28T18:52:00.000-04:00

"Teaching kids to respect their elders or everyone on the planet automatically, is what leads to molestation and other abuses. Kids need to trust their own instincts."

This was left in my comments the other day, and I think it's important enough to blog about by itself, since it's something I've given much thought to. The writer was indicating her discomfort with my statement that "I certainly expect [my children] to respect not only their elders, but all other people, simply by virtue of the fact that we all share the same planet."

It's funny, because I really did pause over that sentence before deciding to leave it as is; I wanted to make sure that I really do mean it. And I do stand by it now. The difference is one of semantics; my reader's definition of the word is different than the one I usually assign it. I looked up the word on dictionary.com and think she may have understood my meaning to be "To feel or show deferential regard for" whereas when it comes to this usage, I intended it to mean "courteous regard for people's feelings". So when I expect my children to have respect for everyone, that doesn't mean I expect them to always show deference.

I agree that expecting children to ignore their own instincts by demanding they show deference to everyone would be a monumental mistake. My reader is absolutely correct in her statement that this "is what leads to molestation and other abuses." Having grown up in New York City, I am very proud of my instincts about people, and in my hopes of making sure my own children's instincts are not corrupted, I devoured the book Protecting the Gift by Gavin De Becker:

Mr. De Becker has appeared on numerous TV shows, and does an amazing job of helping parents trust their children's instincts.

So when the word respect is defined as "courteous regard for people's feelings", yes, I expect my children to show respect for all people, same as I do. Even to "the lady that grills my child about what he/she knows". A blunt response might be where I end up, but hopefully never where I start.

10 Favorite Quotes...on school

2007-04-26T19:51:00.000-04:00

It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.
...............Albert Einstein

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.
...............Beatrix Potter

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.
...............Anne Sullivan

I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.
...............Agatha Christie

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
...............Mark Twain

Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.
...............Victor Hugo

All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
...............Sir Walter Scott

Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mundane educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom, go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts.
...............Frank Zappa

I know my enemies, they're the teachers who taught me to fight me.
...............Rage Against the Machine

It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion.
...............Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany