06.22.08
Posted in The nuts and bolts of it at 10:52 am by Meg
I’m posting this here, because it’s the summer and a lot of people are starting to think about school and the fall and what they are going to do to educate their children. Looking over my archives, I haven’t had a post on this subject in a while.
Here’s a few of my posts to go back to:
What does it take to homeschool? Dedication.
How do you live as a homeschooler? Flexibility.
So what is the right way to homeschool? Personal Choice.
Where can I find help to homeschool? Friends.
A local board (a non-homeschooling one of all things) has a section for the few of us that do homeschool. One member had decided to homeschool her kindergartener this coming year. And now she’s panicking.
Okay I’ve slacked. I am starting to FREAK OUT because of it. I’ve been upset about other things today and now that I am freaking out about this homeschooling thing I am on the verge of tears. I don’t want to ruin ds so I know that is where my fear is. I think it will be easier because dd is getting to the point she wants to do some of his activities too.
Here’s my suggestions
Can you pin point what it is that is particularly putting you into overdrive? or is it just a general sense of being overwhelmed by the feelings of responsibility?
Generally, there are some things that help.
First off, your fears are the main reason support groups exist. Yep, we all get them and having a place to talk with others will help (and in person is best because more will come out in a group (live) discussion than a forum or list.) All of us have bad days/weeks/months/and even years and hearing other’s prospectives will help you see new ways to approach your own issues.
Second off, you are not working with a 15 yo. high school student who has decided to be a brain surgeon. Homeschooling is not a 13 year commitment. I have always looked at it as a 1 year commitment that will be reassessed each summer. Life changes and it’s important to roll with the changes and that includes any plans of what will be the best education for your child and your family.
Third - Remember that people that decide to become teachers (especially those that don’t look into become high school teachers) take classes that would make your jaw drop. Most of their classes revolve around how to manage 20 or 30 kids at the same time. That’s not a skill you need as a homeschooler. (Here’s ISU’s elementary ed degree - How much of this is practical for a homeschooler?)
Fourth - you know your child best. You know what turns him on and what will make his eyes glaze over. You know what makes a good day for him and when to back off and let him spin his wheels because that’s what he needs.
Fifth - Have you really looked at what the local schools wants kindergarteners to learn? If balancing the two kids is your trigger concern, you should have no problem working around naps and the like for what little academics are involved.
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06.21.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 12:18 am by Meg
Boy came home from his 4H trip today (Friday, see correction below). It marked an important landmark in my mind. It was right after this trip last year that he started complaining about pain in his gut.
Between dealing with the Crohns and applying to colleges, it seems like a lifetime ago.
Looking at him today, it’s hard to believe that at the worst point last summer he weighed 30 pounds less than he does now.
He’s in a whole lot better place these days and 2 months from today (oops, it’s after midnight, so yesterday actually) we’ll be leaving to drive him down to Texas.
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06.17.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 9:21 am by Meg
I followed a bunch of links the other day to what looked at an interesting blog.
I bookmarked it so I could come back…at least I thought I did.
Now I can’t find the bookmark and I’m not sure I could recreate how I got there.
Grrrrr!
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06.16.08
Posted in COLLEGE at 11:00 am by Meg
Anyone remember that Boy was waitlisted by two schools?
Well, we haven’t heard anything else from one, but Tulane is still checking in with him regularly if he might still be interested.
Yeah, it is 6 weeks after that May 1 deadline…you’d think it would be settled by now. And it really is on our part. Boy is happily looking forward to San Antonio in August. But we figure it doesn’t hurt to see what might get thrown at us, so we’ll play along with Tulane.
As it happens, what we are seeing is playing out all over this year. Just a week or so ago, the Chronicle has a long article about how nearly everyone is digging into their waitlists to come up with ‘full’ classes.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 12:30 am by Meg
The thinking parents’ writing assignment was to give your presidential candidate a 30 second commercial.
I wasn’t planning on doing it at first, because I wasn’t sure I really had anything distinctive to say.
But as I read what others had written, I realized I did want to add something.
Boy turns 18 in 17 days.
I do not want my son to be a young adult while our country is fighting a war.
It’s as simple as that.
Vote Obama.
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06.15.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 11:14 am by Meg
Can you tell I’m on summer?
The kids have been busy.
Boy came back from one martial arts seminar last week (in Buffalo and he flew home by himself) to go to a local one. The grandmaster who was at the one in Buffalo was so taken with him, that when he realized that he’d be in Boy’s home town for this one, he said that Boy shouldn’t be charged to attend. I can never keep these people apart, but for anyone who wants to know, while Boy and Hubby do a few different styles of martial arts, the Buffalo trip was for Modern Arnis (Filipino stick fighting).
On Tuesday he’s off on a four day 4H trip.
Girl has been working like crazy at the library. Mostly she’s been volunteering in the reading intervention program. It’s suppose to be 2 - 2 hour shifts a week working with one of the two classes they run during June, but the way they set it up this year discouraged people from signing up (you had to commit to all 8 periods the class meet) and when she realized that no one had signed up for the morning class, she asked if she could do both.
So now she’s working 2 - 5 hour shifts a week plus the other activities she signed up to work.
In between picking people up at the airport and running them back and forth to activities, I’ve been trying to get ready for my 4H leatherwork workshops on Wednesday. I’m not getting as big a turnout as I had hoped this year, and none of the kids that last year said they were interested in doing advanced this year came back. But I’ll have about 15 kids between the two sessions and that’s a fair number when you also add in that I did a separate workshop for the homeschool kids.
I’ve also been working on leather for myself. I haven’t yet made a bowl for us, so that’s been my project this last week. I wasn’t sure what I was going to put on it, but finally settled on this picture from Dover 
I had saved it from ages ago when I was receiving their weekly free downloads. Of course now I have no idea what it is from or a firm idea of what all the flowers are suppose to be. I should finish carving it today, which will just leave shaping and painting it. (I’ll post pics when it’s done.)
And on house news, I’ve figured out that Lowe’s will set up for someone to install my new ceiling fans for me - I just have to make time to go down and buy them and set them up. And I haven’t even gotten started on the sinks…so the hall bathroom still looks like this: 
I think my fil described it as a crime scene.
My ankle is still bothering me from last month and it’s hard to get motivated to do something with it hurting. If it doesn’t get better soon, I’ll probably be running to the doctor to see what’s going on.
oh, and getting the exchange student is proceeding very, very slowly. We’ve filled out the application and they’ve done the background check, but we are still waiting on our home visit and the go ahead to contact the girl, let alone getting her arrival date.
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06.11.08
Posted in Books at 1:14 am by Meg
let alone a homeschooling mom.
I was not one of those girls that planned out my family while I was young, or knew/cared about what my house would like. I guess if you had asked me I probably would have informed you that I ‘expected’ to have kids at some point, but never dwelt on the idea.
I did know that I wanted a career as a professional, and definitely felt the need for it to be self-supporting.
Being an engineer met the need, and being a civil engineer meant that I had a fun job that could, in the course a day, take me from the office, to a job site, to presenting a proposal in front of a town board. I got to travel, to stay in ‘nice’ hotels at company expense (also a dive or two), and drive a company car occasionally when I traveled. I also worked a lot of 60 hour weeks, including late days and weekends - when the project needs to be done, you get it there.
When Hubby and I got together and started discussing kids, I quickly realized that like my memories of my mom, I also saw myself being home with my kids.
Okay, throw the career plans out the window.
Adding to the adjustment was our moves. The summer we got married we moved to LA - Hubby was fresh out of grad school and took a ‘one-year’ temp job while he was looking for something better. I found work there, but at the end of the year (one month after Boy was born) we moved north up to Monterey.
Now I didn’t make a lot of friends during that year anyway. The side effect of being a woman civil engineer is that you are often the only woman in the office - in this case there were 2 others: the landscape architect and the secretary. We were pleasant and friendly, but not really ‘friends.’
So I landed in yet another new town, with a month-old baby, new to being a “stay-at-home” mom, and a husband that left for the office every day. I knew NOBODY! I don’t think our street had another family on it. It was rough.
Hubby still says that it took me years to start calling myself a “homemaker” which he describes as a tangible proof of my adjustment.
All this was to give you background as to why when I was offered the chance to read and review The Stay-At-Home Survival Guide by Melissa Stanton, 
I jumped at it. It sounded like a wonderful idea that I would have appreciated having access to about 19 years ago.
I figured that I was certainly placed to appreciate where Ms. Stanton was coming from (she was a senior editor at People and Life Magazines) and to have some basis to see if she really had some sound advice.
And generally, she hit her mark.
After reading the book, I certainly feel that I could enjoy sitting down with her and continuing the conversation in person. (And yes, she does give you the feeling that she is talking to you, and that you are getting to know her and her family.)
I don’t agree with everything she’s said (but what friend do you agree 100% with, or want to), but the main point that I took away from the book is the feeling of reassurance that she is projecting to moms who are just making the transition out of the work place. I think someone just making the transition will get the idea that they aren’t doing something that is strange and that they can find their feet and survive.
And she covers just about any topic that might come up:
- The transition from career to home
- Money matters
- Having one child or many
- Sex and marriage
- Household-chore expectations
- Friendships
- Loneliness
- Coping strategies
- Creating time for yourself
- Returning to the workforce—or not
My complaints are few:
- She describes 3 phases of being a Stay-at Home Mom (a. totally stay-at-home kids, b. some home and some in school, and c. all in school) but I really felt like she didn’t say much about that third set. Maybe it’s because I’m a stay-at-home mom to older kids, but I felt the lack. (And I do realize that the target audience of this book is probably not that third group.)
- I really had trouble at first getting into the book because the first quarter seemed to constantly revolve around a whine about not having the support from our government/businesses to be able to build a career around a family. It disappeared as she got into the meat of the book, but it set my teeth on edge until I got there.
Anyway, considering (as I said) that the book is really designed for someone just becoming a stay-at-home mom (most often with at least one small child whether it is the first, second, etc.) it does make it’s goal. I also realize that for many professional woman coming home may not be what they are planning on, but be in reaction to a perceived lack in being able to balance work and children, and so the tone of the beginning of the book may not set them on edge.
So all in all, I’ll probably keep it in mind for baby shower presents and the like. 
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06.09.08
Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 12:16 am by Meg
These are from the Indianapolis Star.
Troopers Heath Kerns, William J. Patterson and John Myers of the Indiana State Police survey the area where part of I-70 collapsed in several places where a pipe went under the road near mile marker 31 after the Cloverdale exit. The collapse and water flowing over the road caused a section of the interstate to be closed and traffic to be diverted.
Part of I-70 collapsed in several places where a pipe went under the road near mile marker 31 after the Cloverdale exit. The collapse and water flowing over the road caused a section of the interstate to be closed and traffic to be diverted.
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