Letting go of dreams

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rock star, a teacher, and a writer.

Let's face it.  I had no chance of ever becoming a rock star.  I can't sing.  I quit the clarinet, and really, what rock band is looking for a woodwind player anyway?  Plus, I really don't want the rock star life.  I can sing in my car at the top of my lungs, and that makes me happy enough.  I let go of the rock star dream a long, long time ago.

I did end up becoming a teacher, though not at all in the way I had envisioned.  I was going to be a Social Studies teacher, and then I was going to be a school librarian, and then, well, it seems I became a homeschooler.  Trust me, that was not really on my radar until a few months before we decided to take the plunge.  So here we have a dream come true.

The third one, however, is a tough one.  I have an abundance of thoughts swirling in my head at all times.  Sometimes they are stories about made up lands and made up people, and sometimes I am really afraid that I am supposed to tell my own story.  I cannot even begin to tell you how terrifying that is to me.

I've always expressed myself best through writing.  I have a hard time being really open and real face-to-face.  Some of you are going to psychoanalyze that.  Anyway, it's so much easier for me to make sense out of all the noise in my head when I can take the time to write.  I'm not quick enough for most arguments.  I say the wrong thing ALL THE TIME.  Not just something that offends someone, or hurts someone's feelings, but I literally say things I don't mean, and then chastise myself for doing so.  I have to think out loud, and if someone isn't willing to listen to me go through that process, then there's a communication breakdown.  And believe me, it's not a trait that I am especially pleased to possess, but it's how I am wired.  My point is, writing helps me think out loud, but I can backspace and erase half of it and start over.  Verbal communication doesn't work like that.  I prefer writing.

When I was younger, I wrote constantly.  I wrote short stories.  I wrote (terrible) poetry.  I started writing a novel in junior high.  I journaled, a lot.  Really, this blog is my journal every now and then (like today), but I rarely journal anymore.  I did NaNoWriMo last year, and felt like a massive failure.  I wrote.  And wrote.  And it was just garbage.  Horrid.  I never let anyone read it, and I deleted it.

I have been thinking about becoming a writer, and maybe it's time for me to just let it go.  I mean, I got the teacher thing.  I feel like a rock star when I play Rock Band.  I don't need to hang on to being a writer.  I tell myself it's okay; I don't really have anything to say.  No one would want to hear it anyway.

On the one hand, I think I should just give up, and grow up, and let go of childish dreams.  On the other hand, I think dreams are one of the best things about life.  Writing has been that thing that I'll do one day.  I think this dream is part of who I am.

The other day I saw one of those cheesy quote things on Pinterest:

I realized something when I read this.  I am afraid of letting go and putting myself out there for critique and criticism.  I do not take criticism well at all.  I'm hard enough on myself that I can barely stand anything extra.  Fear is a terrible reason for me to stop dreaming about becoming a writer.  Quite honestly, I realized that I am already a writer.  No, I'm not a great writer, and that's okay.  But I do have something to say.  I have worlds to create, people to tell you about, and stories to share.  Maybe even my own.

I'm keeping this dream.

2012-2013 School Year

We have had a fantastic summer.  I have felt a calling for a few years now to be less busy, and focus more on home.  You might be wondering how this can be possible when I'm home with these kids almost all the time.  For me, it's been about attitude.  I am trying to judge the impact of activities or even events on our family life.  I ask myself, "Is [insert name of activity here] good for all of us?"  Yes, I can sign my kids up for many different things.  Scrappy could play fall baseball, but it would mean traveling, and that would mean less meals at home, and rarely seeing Hub as he gets home from work a little late.  And so, fall ball is definitely out.  It's like that.  The alleged benefit isn't that great.

I purposed this summer to say no to most things, and make the most out of the few outings we did have.  No, we didn't go on a vacation this year.  We went camping a few times, we've gone to the pool, and we've read and been lazy.  I can't remember the last time I actually felt refreshed by our summer break.  I admit that saying no has been harder than I thought.  I'm continuing to say no into the fall, and we'll see how the burnout goes.

We spent a day at Raccoon Creek State Park.

Jumping into Deep Creek Lake.

We're starting school on August 27 this year.  Here's the break down, for those of you who like to know these things:

Scrappy, age 10

Math: Math-U-See Gamma (for a couple weeks to finish up) and Delta
Health:  Queen book on puberty for boys

Funny, age 9

Math:  MUS Beta/Gamma
Health:  Queen book on puberty for girls

Goofy, age 8

Math:  MUS Beta/Gamma

Silly, age 6

Math:  MUS Alpha/Beta
LA:  Explode the Code


Everything else is the same for everyone, except Silly who has her own LA:

LA:  Queen Language Lessons for the Elementary Child
IEW
Cursive/Copywork (That's from Queen also)
Queen spelling
a random workbook of vocab word of the day fun
Easy Grammar Plus

Bible:  Humility study (more Queen)
Okay, so really, I need to do this study more than anyone.  We're going to be doing it as a family--even Hub is going to participate.

Science: Apologia Land Animals (hoping to finish in December) and Astronomy

SS:  Story of the World vol 3 (finally we're done with vol 2!)
assorted readers about American history
Maps & Geography workbook (just parts of it)
some yet-to-be-determined project on PA inventors or history (I'm organizing something with other homeschoolers.  I probably need to think about that.)

Health:  Abeka

Music:  orchestra unit study

Art:  Notgrass Draw to Learn--The Life of Jesus (has anyone used this?)

2011-2012 Year in Review

I knew I hadn't blogged for a while, but I had no idea it was so long.  I can't say I'm surprised, as it was a rough winter around here, and I was absolutely not in the mood for, well, anything.  On a positive note, things are much better, spring has sprung, and we're winding up the school year.

I'm not very good at giving myself a break, especially where my children are concerned, and I fully admit that this was not our best homeschooling year.  I'm having a hard time forgiving myself (because, of course, being me, I'm to blame).  I started to put together portfolios for Scrappy and Funny and then burst into tears.  This is what real homeschooling is like, people!  There are lots of tears, and regret, and fear.  At the same time, I am making a real effort to find the good things.  I adore these kids, and they get along so well (mostly).  Today we were discussing the word "drip" and how one of the meanings is "a person who doesn't like to have any fun."  Funny immediately announced that I was not a drip.  That really warmed my heart.  It's the simple things, really.

And with that in mind, here are some of the good things from this year.  Please know that there were lots of not-so-good things, and I don't want anyone to think that I have it together and that things are always rosy at my house.  Homeschooling is hard, but I know that God has called us to it, and that He will continue to equip me, if I would just get out of His way and let Him.

Flour Children petting a ray.  Always fun!

Monopoly.  For about 2 months here, this is what my table looked like.  Every.  Day.

Goofy and Scrappy played basketball.

Making Valentines for friends.

We learned how they make the doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts. 

Silly and Funny are BFFs, and always breaking into dance.

The kids are really interested in photography.  Scrappy took this.

Funny learned to use chopsticks.

We went to the museum to check out some dinosaurs.

Scrappy likes fossils.

These kids love to draw!

Goofy's work.

The Flour Children played soccer for the first time.

Running out of the Steelers tunnel at Heinz Field.

Candyland

I almost never bother to make candy.  My kids get way too much of it from AWANA, and I'm pretty happy with the occasional bit of dark chocolate.  Every time I've made fudge, it hasn't turned out.  And so, maybe I'm a little afraid of candy.  But that never stops me from trying again.  It's handy to be stubborn.

This is from one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, by Nigella Lawson.  I adore the way she writes about food.  She likes food.  A lot.  Plus, the book is very pretty to look at.

Cinder Toffee (aka honeycomb)
from How to Be a Domestic Goddess

3/4 c. sugar
4 tbsp. light corn syrup
1 tbsp. baking soda
8 inch square pan, well-greased

Grease that pan.  Seriously.  With some butter, in fact.

Mix the sugar and syrup in a heavy-bottomed pot.  THEN turn the burner on, to medium heat.  Let it heat up and you can stir it a bit to make sure it doesn't burn and that the sugar is dissolving.  It will begin to bubble and just start to change to a yellowish-brown.  (Mine took about 5-6 minutes, Nigella says 3-4)  You are not looking to caramelize this to a dark color.

Remove from the heat and quickly whisk in the baking soda.  This part is exciting, and next time I am going to let the kids do this.  It fills the candy with air and the whole thing puffs up.  Fun!  Quickly pour into the dish and let it harden for a few hours.

I used my meat mallet to break this right in the middle and the whole thing split into 4 big pieces that I could then pull out of the dish.  Then I broke them further (with the mallet) into bite-sized pieces.

Our friend Nigella suggests we dip them in chocolate, if we feel so inclined.  I like the way she thinks.  I'm going to do that next time too.  All the little bits you can save for an ice cream topping.

Home is where the school is

I haven't posted too much about school this year.  We are still homeschooling, and we've been having a bit of a difficult year.  This is largely due to personality conflicts, which exist in families.  No amount of sending them away to school will change that.  I don't need "a break" from my kids, as if they are some horrible burden in my life.  They are my life (along with the ever-supportive Hub).

This year Scrappy is in 4th grade, Funny is in 3rd, Goofy is in 2nd, and Silly is in K, but mostly doing 1st grade work.  Here's the summary up to this point:

We tried Wordly Wise with Scrappy, and it turned out to be the thing we fought about most often.  It was pure misery.  I would become exasperated, he would become frustrated, and we always ended up screaming.  So we chucked it.  I'm back to my old methods of teaching vocabulary, which pretty much means I stop and ask if they understand a word, or I define as we go.  Who wants to do vocab flash cards?  Well, I do, but I'm not like other people.

We have lots of traditional homeschooling materials again this year.  The kids have an assortment of workbooks for language arts and math.  Scrappy is about done with MUS Gamma, we're almost finished with Apologia's Swimming Creatures book (we can't ever seem to get to this).  Story of the World is still the favorite for history.

The kids are still using games to learn a lot of different things.  We've started playing Bananagrams, and we use that for spelling and vocab practice.  The kids love to play Scrabble, Settlers of Catan, chess, Uno, Stratego, and even some math games on the iPad.  I think if all their practice/drill can be done through game playing, then that's good.  And even better, a lot of the games they like require strategy and critical thinking.  Yeah, I am okay with that.

We've already gone on 15 field trips this year!  My goal is 20, and I think we should manage to make that.  We have one or two more scheduled for this month, and I know come February, it's all I will want to do.  Gosh, I hate February for homeschooling.  Only you other homeschoolers understand that.  Alas, no worrying about it now!  Here are some highlights from our most recent trip to the Heinz History Center:

Flour Children and friends.  The museum is currently hosting an exhibit on the history of the flag.

Goofy makes pickles.

Funny preps her tent.

Silly and her friend taking a turn at packing pickles.

Flour Children and friends with statue of Franco Harris.

So, in the end, I suppose we had a rocky start.  Each year I find it easier to embrace our less traditional version of education, but every year I still fight myself on it.  We do a lot of reading, playing, and exploring.  We even do worksheets and book work.  Everyone here would rather read a book about homophones (which we did, Dear Deer) versus filling in a worksheet on homophones.  That's just how we roll.  It might not be your way, but it's our way, and it works for us.