Not Another Homeschool Blog

Conversations that changed my outlook on life part 2: So there's this person who I have known pretty much all my life. Our relationship has always been tenuous. They are demanding. Their love language is gifts... for them... monetary. I don't love that way. So, needless to say, we butt heads. A lot.  But because of the nature of the relationship, I tried. Over and over. But the older I got, the more I became secure in saying NO. That caused problems.  After one particular NO. I was told, and I quote: "I hate you. I have always hated you. I will always hate you, and there is nothing you could ever do to change that." Believe it or not, that did not leave me devastated. It freed me.  In that moment, I understood that my actions would never, ever, ever, EEVVEEERRRRR earn me love. NO. Being who I am would earn me the love that was meant to come to me. So from that moment on, I felt a heavy weight lift from my spirit and I became more authentically my...

(little girl making big decisions) (I am stealing this from my Facebook page).  After writing it, it seemed really relative to my blog.   Conversations that changed my outlook on life... Part 1. When I was working a second job at a department store preparing to get married, I worked across the aisle from a woman on the other side of marriage. She had been married many, many years, and before her hubby could retire, he had become sick and she was his care-taker. She also had to work for the first time after having been a stay at home mom. Her kids used to come into the store to say hi. Her son was a doctor,  and her Daughter was a business woman, and she... She was bitter with regret that she had wasted her time raising her kids and taking care of her husband because look at where it landed her.     I think she told me these things because she knew I aspired to stay home and take care of my kids and husband and wanted me to escape her fate. She d...

I am still very raw from the news of the death of Maya Angelou. I feel and deep and profound loss because for me, she was the one, the elder, at shows feet I proverbially sat. I never got to meet her, but once, many years ago, my husband bumped into her in an airport. I was home, pregnant with our first child. He saw her and he knew about my deep love her for and he stopped, gathered his courage and approached her. She was so regal, stood so tall, as he told it, and was very glamorous in her fur coat. He said, "excuse me, I just have to tell you that my wife loves you". She replied, "I love her too". Oh my word! These are the things heroes are made of. He brought her love home to me.  In processing my sadness for the loss of a woman I find to be so iconic, I began to read her work, her quotes, and wanted to see her image. Hello... Facebook, twitter, and youtube. But youtube can be a nasty place, can't it. I stumbled across a video called The truth about ...

I have a relative- very glamorous young lady, with two adorable kids, and not too shabby hubby either. Beautiful family.  I am constantly in awe of her and her parenting prowess.  Even when the kids are driving her nuts, she holds it together and comes out looking like a supermom-fairy.  I am fascinated by the little joys she is finding with her small children, posting genuinely funny and insightful things they say and such.  And then there's the elf.  Their elf has a distinctive name, given by their oldest very clever child (no it's not just bias... he's amazing), and they manage to keep up the ruse quite effectively.  I am impressed.  Impressed and so glad my kids are all grown up.  The last thing I want to do is hide the elf. Next to her, I would look like a rank amateur. I was so glad when I woke up this morning to the following post entitled Dear Perfect Elf on the Shelf people, an open letter.  I thought, "Oh Thank God", I'm not the ...

Yes? No? It doesn't really matter.  They WILL learn... eventually. I've been trying to explain this to a nephew who is struggling with a slow learning curve.  I tell him that yes, he is behind, but the finish line WILL NOT MOVE.  He will get there.  And then, I bet he will soar. This blog here is a great example of such a journey.

Water Aerobics is one of the things that has been filling my time as of late, especially since my kids are all grown up and in college.  Gotta get the ole body in shape if I plan to keep on keeping on. Today's class caused an interesting observation. We had a substitute teacher who claims that she has taught water aerobics before.  However, she was up on the platform, doing a zumba routine, and pretty much giving no instruction.  Meanwhile, all of us down in the water were pretty much flopping around like dying fish. You see, movement under water is very different than movement on dry land. Water makes you weightless, taking the stress of exercise off your legs, feet, and knees, which is why many people, both large and/or elderly don't exercise... because our feet swell up and our knees ache.  So here we are, doing our darndest to keep up, but she's bouncing on dry land, two of these moves, a wiggle, two of those moves, and jump, and eventually many of us began to...

Here is a video of Frederick Douglass' "Fourth of July Speech". I promise you that Frederick Douglass took great pains to measure each and every word from his mouth.  He did not rely on slang and self-denigrating words to get his message across.  He used formal and intelligent speech and was still able to deliver a shocking and forceful address to his audience. This speech and his representations of his race in many speeches helped to move mountains and changed the mindset of the intelligence of the black man in the minds of many doubters.    I dare say that if today's young people would write and speak as intelligently, they would make an even stronger statement - deliver as much shock, as the most swear-word laden rant ever could.   Measure your words. ... and take delight in vocabulary.  Happy Fourth of July. 

I've had the pleasure of noticing a glut of articles and email list advice about guiding children to the "right" majors and careers.  It kind of floors me that homeschoolers have also jumped on this bandwagon. I know we all want to make sure our kids become financially secure, but career engineering, in my opinion, will not help our kids. (Yes, I am biased. I am a creative person and so are my kids, so do with this advice what you will.)  Still, If we point all of our kids to the top 10 college majors for top earners, within 10 years that career choice will be overpopulated. That is just the obvious problem. The other problem, as I see it is that not everyone is wired for those top earning jobs. This means they won't be competitive in their field. They will be at the bottom of the pile professionally and financially. That also won't do much for their emotional well being either.  Meanwhile, that kid that was wired for one of those touchy-feely caree...

   The other day, I wrote a post called Homeschooling with humor.    It was an attempt for me to say that sometimes my kids are a pain in the neck, and I deal with it by giving them back some of their own medicine... I.e.  gently mocking them.  Because if they can be impossible, they surely they need to see how it feels to have that 'tude projected back at them. Last night I came across a post from March 2010 entitled Teen Slacker Mentality and Phony Homeschool Moms .  The post demonstrates how homeschool moms deal with the same period of