Monthly Archives: May 2009

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According to "Glamour," I'm OK

I have to admit:  I love Glamour magazine.  I don’t always agree with it, but I appreciate their fashions, because I think they do a decent job of representing different body types, and showing clothes that are actually wearable, and not just ridiculous.  I love the beauty tips, the articles, the “Dos and Don’ts.”

One of my favorite columns every month, though, is the “It’s OK to…” segment.  It’s usually just a random grouping of things you shouldn’t have to feel bad about doing or not doing, primarily light-hearted, but are often things I find that I can relate to.

Recently (and by that I mean about two months ago, but it slipped my mind!) I read that:

“It’s OK to…have never seen a single episode of Star Trek…or, to have seen every. Single. One.”

Guess which category I fall into?  At least Glamour says I don’t need to feel bad about myself for my inherent nerdiness…also good news for Bunny, who has displayed a propensity toward being a nerd (she loves Worf, what does that tell you?).  I wonder where she gets that from?

*Please note that I am not actually depending on Glamour for validation, or to seriously tell me what in my life is OK and what is not.  I just find it amusing, and often accurate!

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School and the "Real World"

I stumbled across an article this morning about a school district in the midst of a decision of whether or not to change to a stricter dress code.  The following quote really stood out to me:

She pointed out that students will have to cope with diversity in the workplace. ”The real world isn’t the same as school,” Cara said. “People come together with differences; we won’t learn to cope with those differences.”

The insinuation is, of course, that by enforcing a uniform-like dress code, the school is failing to prepare students for the real world, in which they will have to accept and deal with diversity.

My first question is:  who in their right mind really thinks school prepares anyone for the “real world?”  Let’s see, in most school systems, you have a three month long vacation every year, as well as other vacations scattered in between class sessions, you work for maybe seven hours a day, and in spite of the previous two truths, you have basically no freedoms.  Yeah, that sounds like the “real world” we adults live in.

And then there’s the second, more obvious question:  Have any of these parents and students ever heard of an employer with a dress code?  Many, if not most, places of business have at least a rudimentary code for what it appropriate work attire, be it business casual, something more formal, or, *gasp* an actual uniform.  Whether you’re working at McDonald’s, in the military, civil service, or a hospital, many occupations do, in fact, require a strict uniform, in many cases much more strict than the:

Pants, capris or dresses in khaki, black or navy blue, with no denim or sweatpants. Shirts must be solid-color, collared shirts, sweaters or turtlenecks in black, red, navy blue or white.

required by this proposed dress code.

I am just blown away by parents that oppose this kind of thing.  I know as a teenager in high school, I would have loved a uniform–no need to worry about what I would wear the next day, no competition over designer labels, no wondering if I was “in style.”  And, as a parent, I would love a dress code for my children (if they weren’t home-schooled) for the same reasons, with the added benefit of uniforms taking away the distraction that some other clothing choices bring.  Guess I never considered that possibility as a student, but as a parent, I am now aware of the many different kinds of distraction that clothing choices can bring, from clothes that reveal too much, to shirts with inappropriate language, and I think it best if my children don’t have to deal with those distractions when they should be learning.

I guess this is just more proof of a world where parents themselves no longer respect authority, and always assume Johnny and Susie can do no wrong–it must be the evil teachers and administrators fault!

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Quote of the Day

You know, the root of the word Miller is a Greek word. Miller come from the Greek word “milo,” which is mean “apple,” so there you go. As many of you know, our name, Portokalos, is come from the Greek word “portokali,” which mean “orange.” So, okay? Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We all different, but in the end, we all fruit.  Michael Constantine as Gus Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding

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That's a lot of Books!

After a friend asked me yesterday how many books we use in a year of school, I got curious and counted.  I didn’t count this year’s books, because in my opinion, Kindergarten is “lighter” than later grades, so instead I counted the books (and workbooks) we’ll be using for 1st Grade..

Going through my recent Sonlight order of Core K (it sounds like we’re doing Kindergarten again, but it doesn’t work that way, trust me!),  Readers 2 and Language Arts for Readers 2 (which we won’t be starting on at the beginning of 1st Grade, but I had to count either those or Readers 1; since Readers 2 and Language Arts 2 was in the same shipment, they’re in my tally), Horizons Math 1, Science K, Bible K, Electives K, A Reason for Handwriting Book A, and A Reason for Spelling Book A, I came up with approximately 75 books.

This total includes eight individual workbooks(2 math, 3 language arts, 1 vocabulary, 1 handwriting, and 1 spelling) that we need two copies each of, but none of the teacher guides or worksheet packs.  It also includes a few resource books that will be used over the course of many years, including a student dictionary, a children’s encyclopedia and Sonlight’s Book of Time.

Stopping to count our books reminds me what a daunting task homeschooling is, what a great book list Sonlight has put together, and how much I love books and reading.  Whenever I think about it, I’m terrified and elated at the same time. Interesting combination, but so far, it seems to be working for me!

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Quote of the Day

As I made several pricey purchases, I came to the painful conclusion that at some point, financial debt was a little like treading water in the middle of the ocean–it doesn’t matter if you’re in a hundred feet of water or a thousand, you’re still going to drown.  Ray Quinn in The Night Watchman by Mark Mynhair

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Lord, I Love the Habitation of Your House

While it’s true that I love going to church, this isn’t about me–it’s about Moose.

Church is Moose’s favorite place.  Even more than school, which he loves a lot, he loves going to church.  He may not be able to talk much, but he watches intently everything that is going on, he stands and sits (kind of) at the appropriate times, he hums along with the responses, he tries to say the words I know he knows in his heart, he shouts “Amen,” he practically runs to the altar on communion Sundays and, occasionally, he “dings” along with the bell that is rung during the Lord’s prayer.

I thought he was going to explode with joy during Holy Week, when we attended so many services.  He just loves being in God’s house.

Today is a rough day for Moose.  The transmission on our van has decided to die, and since we haven’t figured out where the $3000 to fix it is going to come from (and because they can’t miraculously replace a transmission overnight, anyway), we can’t really drive it.  It *should* be OK for short trips, like taking Moose to school, or Ladybug’s two-year check-up this week, but church is far enough away that we figured we better not risk it.

So, last night, we decided that since Mister is a Sunday school teacher, and Turkey and Bunny are the only two children old enough/able to go to Sunday school, the three of them would go to church and Sunday school together in Mister’s car today (and, thankfully, booster seats are easy to transfer between vehicles, unlike regular car-seats).

Turkey and Bunny got dressed in their church clothes as usual this morning, and I *was* planning on just letting Moose and Ladybug have a “jammies day.”  It’s not like we can go anywhere, anyway.  But, Moose snuck into his closet, and found his church clothes (he got the shirt and pants right, which surprised me), and brought them to me to help him get dressed.  It was important to him, so I let him get into his church clothes, even though I knew he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

And then, while he was looking out the window, he saw Daddy leaving with his two older siblings for church.  It was terrible.  A complete cry of anguish that made me cry right along with him.  He wanted so badly to be going to church.  Dare I say, he needed to be going to church.  But today, that just wasn’t possible (and depending on what happens with the van, I suppose we may have a similar problem next week–we are going to have to do something about it eventually, though).

And people say children don’t get anything out of church and don’t need to be in a service that is “for adults.” Perhaps we’re just underestimating them!  I know without a shadow of a doubt that Moose is getting way more out of church than most people could even imagine.

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Mother's Day Blog Book Tour

enduring-justice

I recently finished the third book in Amy Wallace’s “Defenders of Hope Series”: Enduring Justice.  I haven’t read the first two books, so it took me a few chapters to get the characters figured out, and try to guess about events that were referred to that must have occurred in the first two books.

Despite the fact that it was a slow start for me, I loved the book.  There were two main plots that were woven together–Hanna Kessler dealing with the childhood abuse that she had never shared with anyone, not even her family, and the FBI (including Hanna’s brother and her boyfriend) searching for a racially motivated killer.

This was a pretty gritty book, because of the flashbacks to Hanna’s abuse, and the details regarding the white supremacists as the FBI is desperately trying to find and apprehend them. It was a very real book, with characters dealing with real emotions and real flaws.  I didn’t find this to be the stereotypical Christian novel, filled with syrupy characters who always make the right decisions.  The characters in this book made mistakes, some big ones, and had to deal with the consequences just like they would in the real world.

The style of this book very much reminded my of Dee Henderson’s “O’Malley” series, which is high praise from me, as that was the first mystery/suspense series I ever enjoyed reading.  I am looking forward to going back and reading the first two books, Ransomed Dreams and Healing Promises, and I’ll be curious to see if Amy Wallace writes any more books in the series–if she does, I’ll definitely be looking for those, too!

dear-mom

I also had the chance to read Dear Mom by Melody Carlson, which is a book written for mothers of teenage daughters, in a style as though it is written by the teenager herself.  Unfortunately, I didn’t find this book to be nearly as appealing as Enduring Justice was.

I understand the purpose of the book, and think it’s a good one–to help mothers see how their actions, from the way they dress to the way they interact with their daughter’s friends to the words they choose, affect their children.  But something about the tone of the book was disturbing to me.  Maybe that’s just the natural tone of teenagers, and that’s why it rubbed me the wrong way, but it came across like mothers are just stupid, and need to be talked to like children in order to understand how they can make communication with their daughters easier.

I am all for encouraging parents and teens in their interactions, and helping them understand each other better. But I would think that there is a better, more respectful way to accomplish this goal.

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Everyone Needs a Ladybug

I was taking Moose and Ladybug upstairs for a nap after they had lunch, and on my way, I stubbed my toe. Hard.

I’m hopping around, saying “ow” while holding Ladybug, (and silently reminding myself not to swear in front of my little parrot), and she starts patting me and saying “hurt? hurt?”

How could I not immediately feel better after seeing my two-year-old’s display of compassion?  Her gentle spirit somehow made my toe OK.

Everyone should have a Ladybug in their life, to help soothe their hurts!

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A Milestone, Sort Of

We still have a few weeks of Sonlight’s Core P 4/5, so I can’t say we’ve finished (survived?) our first year of homeschooling yet. That will come when we’ve finished the whole core, and I can say Turkey and Bunny have moved on from Kindergarten to First Grade (how did that happen so fast, anyway?).

But this week we are finishing Language Arts K.  I began realizing about a month ago–maybe six weeks–that Turkey and Bunny were getting bored, that the pacing of L.A. K was getting to be too slow.  So I accelerated the program considerably (one of the many benefits of Sonlight–it’s so easy to adjust the pacing to fit your children), and this week we’ll be done with it, and next week we’ll be moving on to L.A. 1.

It’s a weird feeling knowing we’ve finished something. I had so many doubts about my abilities to teach them when we started last year–I was so afraid that I wouldn’t be able to teach them to read; that I’d have to admit defeat and send them to the public school.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a whole new set of doubts and fears as I look at L.A. 1, and all of the new stuff that will be my responsibility to teach (and don’t even get me started on my fears relating to the Core K that I ordered yesterday!). Now that we’ve been doing this for almost a year, and we’ve actually successfully completed something, I am gaining confidence in myself, in them, and in my choice of curriculum (which was never really in question, but it’s nice to have that kind of confirmation).

Next stop–saying goodbye to Kindergarten!