What We're Watching, Learning, Making, Doing. Et tu?

*What We're Watching*

Tried to watch the prez debate on Tuesday but couldn't stream it worth watching. Watched Footnote instead. An interesting family systems movie.  The real worth was the directors interview at the Toronto Film Festival. Fascinating comments on current folklore and traditions in Israel. LOVED the directors story of the inspiration for the film.

Downton Abby Season II is waiting for my at the library. I can scarce belief it 'cause I was #22 on queue 2 weeks ago.

*What We're Learning*

Kids continue to memorize Horatius at the Bridge. Who's he and why do I care? Read this and find out.

Rocking rhyme.

Quiz on Middle East for MP's Geography. Both Flower and Cub came home from TC with 100% on their papers.

Math- Saxon Alg 1/2, MME, Kumon Decimals and Percents, Perplexors.

Latin Copybook- love it.

Famous Men of Greece- just read Odysseus.

Christian Studies IV- 1/3 of the way through Exodus.

WWS- week 29. First paper with footnotes and Reference Page.
Feeche's back in the saddle. Ballroom dancing tonight and a full day tomorrow.
RS German, The Diving Comedy, Poetry Outloud.
 Seems like he's easing back in to Pre-calc and Physics. Imagine that?!

*What We're Making*

Flower is loving (as in it is the absolute highlight of her week loving) her weekly foray in to the world of clay with Miss. Z. Our friend Z is not only a gifted artist with a rocking name (I mean, really, the 2 irl people I've known whose names have started with the letter "Z" have been truly awesome people) but a  lovely person. Flower told me after class that Miss. Z had a "great sense of sarcasm." *snort*. Probably why I love her so much!

The class is at Z's in-home studio which houses a lovely to-die-for kiln (I used to throw pottery years ago and still dig the earthy sights and smells of a pottery studio!), a roller and pots full of incising and cutting tools, a long work table and shelves piled high with works in progress.

Look at those faces- are these happy kids or what?!

And Legos. Feeche came home exhausted from Challenge late on Tuesday evening. He spent the day recuperating from a head cold and lack of sleep by building the day away. You are never too old for Legos. Cub and Flower were only 2 happy to join Big Bro (one of their fav people) by sprawling all over the basement floor with him and building like crazy.

I started a new blog series:

Getting Acquainted Part I- About Me Getting Acquainted Part II- Why Homeschool?

I'll be adding more- loved this idea from Art's Chili Pepper so much I decided to do it too myself!

*What We're Planning*

A Lego League Open House at the library this Saturday. The library said expect 200 people (holy moly!). The team will show a power point they put together, run some of the missions they've programmed, talk about the Core Values of LL and the Yearly Challenge and display exceptional Teamwork.

*What We've Been Doing*

Feeche is back from 2 weeks staff prepping and staffing Challenge.
Courage, Strength, Faith - Winning combo.

*What We're Reading*

Not much. I hit my head- HARD  last Saturday and am finally thinking straight again. Oy vey.
Feeches reading more Redwall to the kiddos; the never ending saga.
 God bless Brian Jaques and his loquacious little hide.

*What We are Gateful For*

Feeche's safe travels, fun trip, great stories.

KB's fun and not over yet vacation in Kentucky and Ohio.  She'll be flying the friendly skies on Saturday.
The walk and retaining wall are DONE (loving it!) and some doors are UP on the 2nd floor!
I have hope of closets and trim! And since our latest purchase was a table saw, it could happen s.o.o.n.
Booyah, baby!

And while the wind was wicked enough to blow out a back window in our van (Yes, you read that right- NOAA described the wind that night as "slightly breezy- um, right), the tramp remained secure thanks to bulldog chaining it to the old metal clothesline.
So, bloggy buddies. What's up with you this week?

Getting Aquantined Part II - Why Homeschool



We've homescooled for awhile now (22 years this year) and it has defined a large part of our family life. Why homeschool? I always knew that if I ever had kids I would seek out an alternative to public education for them. I moved every 2 years as a child and being shy (which I was, no lie), this was painfully difficult. I was always the new kid, always the outsider and I missed vast amounts of information. Plus, school just wasn't that interesting. Maybe it seemed that way because I spent so much time wondering what we were talking about (did I mention I missed out on a lot by moving?) I compensated by doing things I thought were interesting. I read. A lot. In high school I sang in choirs, played in bands, threw pottery, studied photography, played tennis, swam on teams, held jobs, and read thousands of words and hundreds of books. And worked. I learned a lot, but not necessarily in the traditional expected ways.



We started homeschooling in southern California when our oldest was 5. We didn't have to register our kids untill they were 7 and we knew that by the time our oldest would be 7 we would have finished the part of grad school that required CA residency and moved somewhere else. Which is exactly what happened. The CA schools that we visited had issues. I won't bore you with the details but they covered the gamut from academic to social. We figured we could handle phonics instruction. Which we did (thanks Samuel Blumenfeld- LOVE AlphaPhoncis!).
From there we spent a year in Ohio, knowing that the military would move us again in a year. Which they did. We believed that homeschooling for the interim year would provide more consistancy than enrolling and de-enrolling once we moved. We spent the year hanging out with friends from college, family and taking care of our very sick newborn. Dr. Dh's internship cooked his grits time and energy wise so we didn't see him as much as we would have liked but we had a lot of fun going on field trips, reading books and being close to the people we loved.

After that we landed in NM. Home of abysmal test scores and the drug corridor of the west. By the time we'd left Ohio I joked that we were in a rut, which is why we continued to homeschool. Sadly, folks failed to laugh at my droll and dry wit, so I quit joking about it. The fact of the matter is that homeschooling had become a life-style for us. My husband and I are committed to education and sharing our faith with our kids and believed that a private educational model, specifically tutoring , delivered by invested, caring adults was the way to go. Homeschooling was the way that we could do this affordably.

It hasn't been all joyful educational pursuit. We've birthed strong-willed kids, changed locations and social support a couple of times and had our share of challenges. Yet we continue to homeschool. Why? For us, it boils down to a couple of simple things.

A. Education. Our kids are getting a solid education. Is it perfect? No. Are there gaps? Yes. Is that normal. I think so. Do we continue to hone and improve what we do? Yes.
B. Faith. Our kids are committed to their faith and have years to refine, define and own it before the world and peers, and a whole host of other voices come along to batter and beat it into something almost Christan. Our kids leave our home with a solid understanding of the history of the church, the importance and personhood of Jesus and a glimpse at how imperfect people attempt to live a live of vibrant faith. Is it perfect? No. Do we fail? Yes. Is that normal. I know so.
C. Family. It's a busy world. We've had hours to spend together, playing, reading, learning, building, re-modeling, cooking, gardening, arguing and laughing together. The good side of that is that everybody really knows each other. The downside of this is that everybody really knows each other. Is it perfect? No. Do we get on each others nerves. You betcha'.



That's not to say that we'll always homeschool. Honestly, if I had a classical UMS around, my kids would be enrolled so fast their heads would spin. But that's not now, where we live. So, we continue to homeschool. We continue to believe that it's the best choice for our kids and our family for now. And it continues to address some core values of ours in ways that nothing else does.


How 'bout you? How do you school?

Before and After Doors and Hinges

Just another never ending project -the 2nd floor doors. We kept the originals, but sanded, stained and polyurethaned them. The hings and screws were brass plated but didn't stand up to tough scrubbing, like the knobs and plates did 'cuase they my friend are the real brass McCoy (see here).

Enter spray paint, baby.

Sticking everything upright in styrofoam was my brilliant idea. Clever, eh?

Dark metallic brown.

We did 2-tone on the doors. A light color on the main area of the door and the dark espresso stain on the detailed trim. The reason for this is that we did not want to spend the rest of our lives sanding detailed trim work. Picky, I know, but we still have the stairs to do. We have burned out 4 sanders already. Including a belt sander. The hardware guy at Sears was duly impressed.

Still a few touch-up spots to do.

And here is the overall effect. The kick boards and wood trim are next.

We bought a table saw last week-end so it's really going to happen...
Get more inspiration at:

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Who's Horatius and Why Do I Care?

image from Roman History



If you haven't heard of Horatius at the Bridge yet, you are missing out. He was an ancient world hero who defied death and unbelievable odds.

Cub and Flower are memorizing the 70 stanza poem this year for fun. Not really. I mean, they are memorizing it. But I'm not sure they own the fun part yet. I am exercising my rights as PaxRoMomma and making them do it whether they want to or not. Latin Highlands School introduces Horatius to their 5th graders and those who memorize the entire poem are awarded the prestigious "Churchill Award." (cause Churchill did it too. I figured if it's good enough for the British Bulldog, it's good enough for us). In other words, it's all for their own good.

The Lays of Ancient Rome are five ballads written by the Englishman, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and published in 1842. Horatius is the most famous of the ballads and consists of 70 stanzas.

Which leads us to "who cares." Seriously. Why have the kids memorize ancient history, an event that is hardly remembered and full of difficult vocab and places long forgotten. Here's why.

A. It teaches them history.
B. It teaches them vocabulary.
C. It teaches them geography.
D. It teaches them pronunciation of difficult words.
E. It teaches them presentation skills (such as slowing down, over pronunciation, over learning, etc).
F. It teaches them rhyme and meter.
G. It teaches them about the hero's of the past who exhibited character qualities such as courage, bravery and valor.
H. It teaches them that politics, events and decisions made last long past the people who made them.
I. It teaches them to stretch their brain, demand more of themselves than they think possible.
J. It teaches them the joy of ownership (cause once they've memorized something nobody can take that away).
K. It teaches them perseverance. Because believe me, they want to give up on this daunting task about every.single.week.
L. It teaches them to continue to exercise their mental muscles. They done lots of poetry memorization in the past. They watch Feeche and friends perform an entire Shakespeare play once each summer (average length -2 hours). M. They want to make me happy.
N. They want to earn the toy they've been promised once they complete the poem.

See how nice I am? I've committed to getting them the toy of their choice (within a specific amount) if they do in fact complete it. And I'll be vlogging it as well (now that is motivation for my little Hams!).

Horatius? We'd heard of him before, 'casue we're passionate about history too. This year, we're getting to know him on a whole new level!

Can't Leave Well enough Alone

This is the brick side-walk we finally finished 2 week-ends ago.

Dr. Dh has been wanting to mess with it since.

(Actually he's had this in mind for about 7 years. Finally got around to it. I keep telling him if he would just manage his time better he could get more done. Brouhaha. Seriously, if he dies first his epitaph will read, "I didn't get as much done as I wanted to.").

We'll be re-doing the middle garden bed in the spring (the one in the lower right of picture with the garden edging all torn up- we had to move it to dig the side-walk and wanted to cover yet another cistern 'cause the grass will not grow over it)..It will still there but re-configured.

 It defines a great little outside space for our front yard fire pit. In non-drought years you can find us outside on most spring/summer/fall evenings, going back and forth from the swimming pool, garden, roasting S'moes ("they're S'Mores, Buzz") and pushing cats off of our laps.

A small retaining wall for the front garden bed.

(please disregard dead stuff. Lots of trees, shrubs and perennials were dessicated by the drought).

LOVE it.

There's a small area between the side-walk and the wall that we've transplanted mini-carnations in to. When not in bloom it's a interesting grass like plant. See...

Join the fun at Oregon Cottage's Garden Party and TALU
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When Faith Costs

Bible Study got interesting today...

"These things [the Uprising and consequent destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans] happened to the Jews in requital for James the Righteous, who was a brother of Jesus known as Christ, for though he was the most Righteous of men, the Jews put him to death." (Eusebius)

James was put to death because he would not renounce Jesus as Messiah. The Pharisees sought to appeal to old camel kneed James' sense of decency and respectability. But James had seen the light after a little post resurrection chat with his brother, once simply Jesus, now Messiah.

When getting thrown from the temple didn't quell his life, the Jews rocked James. That attempt at murder didn't take either. A fullers club did the trick and sent Yeshua's bro to the Promised Land. His death set in motion the very events that could not would not happen, though Jesus had foretold they would. They happened. The temple fell. The prophecy completed in response to the death of the earthly brother of Jesus.

Students in Nigeria faced the same fate last week. 20-somethings who refused to renounce Jesus Christ as Messiah were either shot or had their throats cut. 46 of them. Young brothers and sister in the Lord, martyred because they would not renounce the Lordship of Messiah.

I imagine they had a pretty awesome reception in the heavenly places when they arrived at their heavenly HOME.

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. James 1:2-4

The Dangers Of Homeschooling

*1*

The Dangers of Homechooling. It's not as safe as you think!
(I've tried and tried to upload the YouTube but it won't stick. Don't miss it, though. VERY funny).

*2*

Lego League is challenging us to learn programming, power point, hone our research skills, practice Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition, work on our team building (see the bridge they cooperatively built from sheets of paper?), problem solving and develop critical thinking skills.
Open house for a couple hundred coming up. Coming up way too fast, that is!
Then Qualifying Rounds. Oy vey. We have a lot of work to do!

*3*

Horatius at the Bridge. I finally found my copy of MP’s study guide. The kids and I spent an hour or so looking up places on the maps, meanings in the notes and generally oohing and ahhing over the whole thing (o.k., maybe that was me, but still). Cub is on verse 12 and Flower is on 9. First section almost complete. Love the rhyme and vocab and geography. It is so great. Love how lit can be a segue way into so much more learning.

Also, MP's World and State Geography, tons of math (gotta go get more Perplexors), Famous Men of Greece, Christian Studies. A good week.
Seemed like it would have been less hectic with Feeche and KB gone. Actually it was.
Less enough to be do-able.

*4*

Flower started clay lessons with our irl artist friend, Miss. Z. The best hour and a half of her week!! She chirped and chatted all the way home about how much she loves Miss. Z (cause who doesn’t?) and clay, and the class.

So, her artistic tastes are heavily influenced by the comic books and movies she and Cub have inhaled the past 2 years.
Guess who?

*5*

Read The Rich are Different this week by Howatch. Loved it.  An analogy of Cesar's life set in America between the wars, before the crash. Teaching WWS, Week 29, kids are taking notes on Ceser to do their first annotated paper. Good thing I was read up on him. 600 pages of intrigue and political maneuvering, but tons to think about.

 Also, The Single Shard as a read-aloud. Lovely story set in 12^th c. Korea about a master potter who, by the dedication and perseverance of his homeless assistant, wins a royal commission.

And I'm at 52. KaBam.

*6*
The big girlies hanging out together in Kaintuk. Miss R thinks she snuck up on KB with the camera but that is KB's classic "Your very own Greek Statue" pose.

*7*

CHALLENGE

Courage

Strength

Faith.
Man-hood training.


Linking up with
Conversion Diaries
Daisy Head

Celebrating the Festival of Sukkot

We've celebrated Sukkot for a couple of years now. For more about why and how read my article here.

First up, build the Sukka. It was pretty cold and windy on Saturday so we didn't spend a lot of time hanging out in it. You can get a good idea of what it looked like here.

Music provided by Sean,

whose Brit accent and ability to make a guitar sing got every body ready to celebrate!

Teaching about the meaning and importance of Sukkot; Hebrew studies,history, N.T., it's relevance to us today.

Gorgeous weather for the kids to play in. It finally warmed up. A bit.

Tether ball, tramp jumping, tag and hanging out at the beautiful pond built by our generous hosts Don and Ricki.

Great food:

 turkey, kreplach, squash and tomato parmigiana, beets and sweets, pumpkin soup, challah bread, dates, garlic stuffed olives, peach cobbler, cookies and whatever I forgot.

More music. Got some dance fever going on.

The brave among us learned a couple of dances.

...and actually looked dance-like at one point.

Torah Study. Study as worship.

A Sukkot blessing.

Blessed are you, LORD our God, King of the universe,

who sanctifies us with His commandments,

and commanded us to dwell in the sukkah! 

Getting Aquainted, Part I

Art's Chili Pepper has a great series on "Getting Acquainted that I love. One of the first things I do when I visit a blog is to head over to the "About Me" section. So, I'm doing a series, too. Wanna join in?

My life is comprised of many things, people and happenings. I am a Christian and fairly conservative, but I've been known to swear a blue streak  on rare occasion. I figure I'm in good company with Patton. I have been married for 27 incredibly long, incredibly short fly-by years to Dr. Dh who is witty, wise and a bit compulsive. He drives me crazy by punning and practical joking but makes up for it by telling me with regularity how beautiful I am (gotta love that in a husband!). He word-perfectly croons 70's and 80's songs to me and tells me nerdy fun facts about astronomy, archeology, Hebrew, the Bible, psychology, and whatever other nerd phenomenon he is currently in to. Nominal nerd that I am I listen wtih rapt attention.

Together we have 5 children, ranging in age from 9 to 25 years old; 3 daughters and 2 sons. The oldest is a college grad, working her first post-college job and living in KY, after spending lots of time abroad. Our second daughter is a Cosmetologist who reads The Universe Next Door for fun, in between making my toe-nails look like works of art. Our youngest daughter is 9; she loves math and music, kittens and art and is not too old to snuggle with her Momma. Love that.

Our oldest son is 18 and a senior in high school this year. He loves theater, literature, science, working out and ballroom dancing. Our 12 year old consumes books and loves building and battles.
All of our kids are creative, faithful, fun people who drive me a little close to the edge with regularity. Funny how people are all like that, eh?

We've homeschooled for 22 years in CA, OH, NM and SD and traveled most of the rest of the states along the way. We have gone from a literature based approach to a neo-classical approach with an firm undergirding of classical unshcooling. We do tons of reading, memory work, and lit studies, with a good dose of math, science and STEM studies thrown in. I am a findcoolstuff4mykids2dofool and they have done some pretty cool things over the years. I'm not above creating and starting stuff if it doesn't already exist and in  my own special way I drive my dh and kids a bit close to the edge about as regularly as they drive me there.

Besides a day job Dr. Dh and his able assistants (me, the kids and whatever helpful souls volunteer) are restoring our 1920's something craftsman style 4 x 4 farmhouse that we were burned out of 3 years ago. Within days and months of the house burning both my Sister and Dad died. It was one of the saddest, hardest years of my life and my husband and children spoke words of faith and love and solace to me and brought me tea and smiles and hugs and hope in ways that I will be forever grateful for.

Along with major house re-model projects we garden excessively, read voraciously and follow some  crazy faith inspired tangents. Our live has been full of joy, pain, challenges and successes and God has shown up at some odd and inspiring times to lift our heads, encourage our hearts and call us to a life that is ever more intentionally following after Him.

Oh yeah. I craft and create, write and blog. Gotta have art, right?
Stop back later for Part II.  What about you?

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Fall Happenings

High School Homeschool this week:

IQ2 Debates coupled with The 4th Turning made for some interesting and passionate discussion,

followed by a Band of Brothers chaser. "3 miles up, 3 miles back. Heigh Ho Silver" -20th century history

Pre-calc graphing yet again. Getting the hang of it, yessireeBob.

The Divine Comedy.Total word nerd love. Memoria Press's study guide rocks.

RS German. Ya Gut.

The Prez Debate.  Ya Gut.

Pack, get on plane at O'dark:30, fly the friendly skies, land in the south.

Challenge accepted.  

BDU's, bug spray, sun screen and glasses in hand.

Camo class and devo notes ready to go.

Heigh Ho Silver. 

*2*

Eled school this week:

Math
Perplexors

Writing

Horatius at the Bridge

Geography

Pre-physics

Read-aloud: A Single Shard.

Tons of comic books

Drawing

MP Famous Men of Greece

Christian Studies IV

Lego League on-line learning programming and research.

*3*

Tuesday afternoon the weather was divine and we spent a couple of hours walking nature trails at the park

and snapping pictures.

Were within feet of a fawn and yearling and a squirrel was within feet of Cub scolding him for climbing his tree.

A glorious fall day.

*4*

Spent Thursday afternoon cooking for Sukkot with Gayla and Beth.

Challah bread, pumpkin soup, peach cake, corn souffle.

Saturday will find the chicken and rice in the crock-pot,

friends gathered, music played, and time spent

laughing, singing, eating and thanking God for the abundance of our lives.

*5*

Started reading The Rich are Different by Susan Howatch.

Dawn sent it to me after reading about how much I didn't like Howatch's High Flyer

 on a 52 books in a year thread over at the Hive.

A couple hundred pages in and Dawn has a point.

Fascinating read.

*6*

KB has worked 7 days straight, has tomorrow off and will be the reason for our 2nd airport trek in a  matter of days. She's off to see her sistah in KY.

Our children are migrating.

Meanwhile, fall has hit with a vengence and we've had 45-50 mph winds here. Chilling and harsh.

*7*

Don't forget it!