Another new book to read

I have been coming across some beautiful blogs and writing on the internet.  One I have followed for quite some time.  I shared her book in my last post, I hope you get a chance to read both her blog and her book.

Recently, thanks to a Martha Steward Living Magazine article, I found a wonderful new writer, her blog is called Rurally Screwed, love that title.  From there I learned she has a book due out on April 3rd.  Her blog is so enjoyable to read I can only imagine that her book is a great read.  Don't forget to pre-order on Amazon for a great price.  Could be a fun read for your book club.

A great read....Heaven is Here

I have been reading NieNie Dialogues for quite some time.  I learned about NieNie just after her accident, as people gathered together to raise funds for her and her family via auctions on Ebay.  I was so inspired first by the total strangers who banded together to help and then completely inspired by Stephanie Nielson and her courage and spirit.  I will be buying her book and I encourage you to do the same.  If her book Heaven is Here is anything like her blog you will be completely inspired by her.  I can't wait until April 3rd.

Alternative Education

My job as educator to my children is to make sure they get what they need and give them lots of space to grow, explore and learn.  I have tried with some successes and some failures but that is what life is all about.  I do my best to give my children all their options.  We do not require college after high school but try to give them what they need if they choose the college option.  I don't feel that college makes them a better or smarter person.  I don't believe that college makes the man (or woman).  I think if there is a desire and a career that calls for college then by all means go to college, but there are many careers that are not inherently enhanced by a college degree, yes I know society says different, I just happen not to agree.   I think you can further your education in many ways and college is not the only way.

I often thought I was alone in the way I was thinking because many around me were saying you can't be anything without college, you won't go anywhere or make good money.  I did honestly worry but I always say that things happen for a reason and the first thing that happened was seeing a link to Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address.  This just confirmed my thinking.  Then I came across this young man which led me to his ZTC (Zero College Tuition) website.  I am so excited to see that people are writing about alternative ways and see that there are options to college and that people are confirming that one road is not necessarily good for all.   So nice to see and I will be reading and learning, I hope many join me.

I am now at the point where I have one who has no interest in college and one who is completely interested in college and two that are too young to even be worrying about it right now.  I know there are some who would even disagree with me on that and say that by middle school they should be thinking about college but no way compared to our time spent in adulthood, childhood is short and I want them to enjoy it and not feel the pressure just yet of evening thinking about it.  Anyway it will be interesting to see how it all plays out down the road.

Looking forward to another great school week at home.  Although tomorrow will not be spent at home, we are headed to George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, where in celebration of his birthday it is free to enter and enjoy a day of fun.  You can read more about it here.

Happy Schooling =D

A book to read

I wanted to share a few books by an author that should, in my opinion be read by all.  He is a great one for parents, home-schooling parents and educators with a very interesting view.

Great place for freebies

Through searching I found a great place to find free or very low cost curriculum or learning materials.

Stop by Home School Math for some great tools for all levels of math.  I have found the videos helpful and the printable workbooks and worksheets a live saver or rather a money saver.  

When I first clicked in through a search I landed here and haven't left since.  For once my younger two are actually enjoying math.  We have tried a few of the more expensive curriculums thinking they would give us the best understanding of math, they were nice but not always fun or helpful.  

On this website you can pretty much find it all.

Schools out for the summer........

.....not. So this year we are schooling through the summer. Not because we are trying to get ahead of everyone but because we are a bit behind, so I made an agreement with my children that we will work for up to 2 hours each morning and then we get to enjoy the rest of our day. I thought the would think I was awful but they were fine with it. So I am keeping it simple and also including learning in everything we do from gardening to baking to a car ride, so far so good.

We are also finding some great books to make the experience even more fun. Some are just for fun reading, some help us in the garden or with cooking and baking and some help us with the learning. Great books out there, we will never trade them for an electronic reader ever, I love turning the pages of this great science program and seeing the great printed colors, very cool. Check it out here - Real Science 4 Kids offers a great learning experience and really give you a thorough understanding for each level of science.

Plus I am reading the City of Ember series, very interesting so far, I will let you know what I think when I finish the series.

Have a happy day!

I hate math

Ugh if I hear that one more time, I will go crazy.  We have tried so many math programs over the years and finally we seemed to have settled on one - Teaching Textbooks, it is wonderful, truly the best for my older two and my 11 yo seems to like it but today I heard those dreaded words "I hate math" from my daughter and I was telling her she did not and that everyone has to do math and now we are all doing this program and no one gets to change, but then I heard myself and remembered why I home school in the first place.  Why you ask?  Well let's see the main reason was because I wanted them to have a freedom in the way they learned, to not be kept in a box and that includes not using a program just because the rest of the family uses it.  So it hit me she loves to bake and shes loves the basic concepts and she doesn't have to have a program to get that.  To some degree I have lost track of my eclectic style and keep following along on the paths of others and that makes me so mad because I am truly my own style but over the last bunch of years I have lost me and my sense of learning from doing and learning at our own pace and style. 

All this from one little state, you ask, why yes can you believe it?  But it took her saying it with such persistence to make me realize I have lost our own path and begun to follow others and it's time for a change.

I will let you know what she chooses.

What's up next on the reading list? 

Going through so many changes

As you can tell by my lack of posts life has gotten quite busy, yes we are still homeschooling which is why we are quite busy, Nolan is graduating this year, we are so excited, my daughter and I got heavily back into crafting, thank goodness we have a book business that has some great craft books, but we are also very fortunate to have a wonderful library system too and they are full of some of the new crafting books.  So between homeschooling, crafting, Daniel's interest in monster creatures and leisure reading (I said that while chuckling, because there really is no time for leisure reading, but I find bits and pieces), I have flipped through many pages over the last few months.

So let's see my favorites right now are Thirst 3, I am almost done with this one, got if as a Christmas gift and I really enjoy this authors style.

One of my favorites for crafting was this one - The New Handmade

Plus I also read an interesting book called Kiss Your Dentist Goodbye
I found this particularly interesting and I think anyone could glean something from this book, my whole family is now using her process for keeping our teeth clean, however we are looking for non-chemical clean products, I will share with you what I find on my other blog La mia vita bella once I find them.

You get the point, I could go on and on but I won't.  There are so many amazing books to read, some are just plain ole fun, some are educational, some help you learn a new craft or even trade and some invigorate the imagination.  Start with your local library to try out a new book and if you find something you must own of course check out our store to see if we have it =D .

Enjoy this beautiful day.

Read a fun book

I just finished a book called Schooled by Gordon Korman.  Great story!! 

Capricorn Anderson had never watched a television show before. He'd never tasted a pizza. He had never even heard of a wedgie. And he had never, in his wildest dreams, thought of living anywhere but Garland Farm commune with his hippie caretaker, Rain.

 

Capricorn (Cap for short) had lived every day of his life on Garland Farm growing fruits and vegetables. He was homeschooled by Rain, the only person he knew in the world. Life was simple for Cap. But when Rain falls out of a tree while picking plums and is hospital-ridden, he has to attend the local middle school and live with his new guidance counselor and her irritable daughter. While Cap knew a lot about Zen Buddhism, no amount formal education could ready him for the trials and tribulations of public middle school.

 

Cap doesn't exactly fit in at Claverage Middle School (dubbed C Average by the kids). He has long, ungroomed hair, wears hemp clothes, and practices Tai Chi out on the lawn. His weirdness basically makes him biggest nerd in school. This is great news for Zach Powers, big man on campus.  He can't wait to instate the age-old tradition in C-Average School:  The biggest nerd is nominated for class president--and wins.  So when Cap becomes president, he is more puzzled than ever.  But as Cap begins to take on his duties, the joke starts to turn on Zach. 

 

Will Cap turn out to be the greatest President in the history of C-Average School?  Or the biggest punchline?  

 

Not much new on the curriculum front and we are taking a short break from school for now.  I am working at getting back to posting as often as I can with new and fun stuff to share.

Using something new

I have found a new math product that we are testing and so far my oldest who is the one using it, likes it quite a bit. What I like is that it works in the areas of need, so while he almost has algebra down pat he needs quite a bit of work in Geometry, so the program covers more in that area. The program is called Aleks - check it out here - http://www.aleks.com/homeschool.

What I really love is I can see how much he is doing daily without being over his shoulder. He learned recently that I get reports bi-weekly and it shows me exactly how much time he has put in each day and how far he has progressed and what he has mastered and what is left to master. He has tried many different programs and seems to enjoy this process the best.

After a long break

I am back. I have missed writing. So many things have happened, it has been a busy year. This year I am homeschooling 3rd, 5th, 10th and 11th. I can't believe I am nearing our first senior year. We went through our many shelves of books and educational materials and I had the children choose what they were interested in. How nice to have the shelves cleared quite a bit and only books of interest remain. For a brief time I was worried about my oldest, have I given him everything he needs to succeed in the world, did we cover everything, you know all the "right" subjects. Then it hit me I have been teaching them how to learn this whole time and 90% of what I know I learned after high school and a large amount of that I learned in the last 10 years. So even though I still worry a bit I know they will be just fine. They have not been taught in a box or to meet a certain test, they have been taught to think outside of the box and to follow their interest. I hope this leads to them finding joy in their life in what ever path they choose.

Peace

Somedays...

Some days are great and others just seem to fail tremendously. What a heart sad day. Makes me question everything I have done raising my children over the years. What happens to turn from the years of joy to all this turmoil. Raising children is the absolutely hands down hardest job in the whole world, yes harder than being president of any corporation or even the country. It seems to me in those jobs you can buy your respect, but as a parent you have to earn every darn bit of it from your children. I always felt like I put 150% into raising these amazing children I have, but days like today I just feel sad and I know my husband must feel the same, it is pure defeat, that is all I can call it. My witty joyful self just retreats in defeat. I miss her when she goes away, more I miss what I dream for my family. I know the things I could have done differently but overall our children our blessed, they want for nothing and I don't mean materially (as I am sure they would say they lack in the material items department, though I beg to differ), we love them tremendously and show them by actually spending time with them, being a part of their lives and showing interest in them.

Today I just feel sad for them, they don't get it, they don't get all that we offer them and they don't see the gift in each other, they are blind in their hearts.

Trying new things

I spend a good part of my day willing my children to try new things. I have over the years tried many news things, but never venture too far outside my comfort zone. I love our book business but I kind of always keep in just so, enough books to sell but not so many that I might lose control, but alas what that creates is a business that is stagnent. So over this last week and a half I have been really working at growing my business and learning new ways to do so. I am excited to watch it grow and seem to be working at it with a passion, finally.

I have taken even more strides, I have been watching this website where you can apply to be a writer for them, I have always loved to write, but most of my writing is personal I never shared it, well until I began blogging but that too is very new. So finally I submitted an application with a sample of my work, at first I was scared because all of a sudden nothing would come to my mind to write about, well I finally left the computer went about my day and sure enough as usual while I was driving in the car my story came to me, this is so typical of me to think of what I want to write while I am driving, this wouldn't be a problem except usually by the time I get home my story has left my mind. So this time, because I knew it was important and I had a pad of paper, I began writing it at each stoplight I hit. I was very pleased with the outcome. So I submitted my application and now we will wait and see. I am good with that because finally I took another step outside my comfortable little box.

And on another big note, I applied for a part-time job, I haven't worked outside the home since Nolan was 15 months old. This is right up my alley, involves coffee (aaahhh life it good) and much more, so that is all I will say for now, but again I am so excited that I took that step. I want my children to see you can try lots of things and be good at them.

Oh so much more I want to share on what I would like for my children and you will be surprised as it does not even remotely involve the "American Dream", as to me that is more of a nightmare and I would never want my children to feel stuck. Anyway I will share more on that later.

Learning from my children

Well yes I am back and ready to write again, seems I just needed to breath for a bit. It has been an amazing time, we did so many new things the last few months, the kids thoroughly enjoyed skiing/snowboarding and guess what I went skiing with them, it has been 20 years, it felt fantastic! I am so glad I joined in the fun.

Well, I realize over the years I seem to often tell the children, try something new, pursue that interest, apply yourself, you know all that stuff. Yea well I am great at telling others what to do but when it comes to me, I don't always follow my own advice. We are experiencing some changes in life and I am really taking on the challenge of growing our books business, for a long time I talked about doing it but this past week I actually started doing it. I am getting this sense of accomplishment, what a great feeling. I absolutely love our book business, I love everything about it, books make me smile they always have. I love when a new one looks brand new and then coming across a vintage books makes me smile. I love getting letters from a customer because they are happy they found that treasure they remembered from childhood or because they found the one book they really wanted for their collection. So I am finally treating my business like a real business, I mean was before, I do all the tax stuff (yuck) and am always professional, but I just kind of let it grow in teenie tiny baby steps. The last week I have finally been taking big huge giant steps, what a great feeling.

So I am very excited to see what Audrey Rose Books can grow into. My dream is a brick and mortar someday, right on our own little piece of land :) Yes a girl can dream, and work at making those dreams come true.

I plan to pop in here this weekend and write about another tidbit, or rather big step I took. I just want to relish it a bit, is relish the right word, I think that goes on hot dogs right? I love relish on my hot dogs.

Happy New Year....

Well, I took a bit of time off, more that I just ran out of time to blog and didn't get here. I am going to try to set a bit of time aside each couple of days to come here and chit chat. I am very excited for a New year, each year always brings a new adventure. Last year in 2008, of course part of my adventure was watching my children grow another year older, that is always hard, but we shared a fantastic year together, we went to Disney World, that was Daniel and Samantha's first time and for Nolan and Aaron, they had not been in 10 years, we went with friends which made the trip even more fun, we went to Great Wolf Lodge so the older boys could go to prom, we spent various summer days at the lake, river and other assorted places, we made some new friends and shared assorted holidays together, the children were in a Christmas Pageant which was so much fun, Dave and I really enjoyed watching all of the children perform, what a fun group. We rang in the New Year with Dave's sister and family which was a blast.

This year holds lots of fun in store as well, we will begin by learning to ski/snowboard next week, should be lots of fun. Plus I am working at getting a bit more organized and back to caring for my family, we baked a lot during the holidays but no bread or normal year round goodies I like to have so it is back to basics for me, but this time I am involving the children, we have decided our children need to get informed about homesteading, and all that goes along with it, I have been waiting for my farm, but how silly not to use our skills and share them with the children, and learn what we don't know. So I am planning my much larger garden for this year and collecting goods to can, make our own yogurt (yummy, my favorite), I made lots of granola for gifts this year but completely forgot to make us some too, that is on the sheet for this week.

Anyway as I begin my routine I will post some of what we accomplish on here, it makes me feel some what accountable and I do love to share.

See you soon.

Exciting day at the Sarah Palin Rally in Richmond

So I actually wrote this the day I went, but I hesitated to post it, showing my choices is always such a personal thing for me and I usually just go along quietly and keep it to myself, but I have just truly been enjoying the election process this go round after learning about Sarah Palin and all I can say is I am proud of my choice and each person should be, I have a friends who are democrats and their candidate fits their wishes, so we honor each other and our choices, we find our likenesses instead of highlighting our differences and I am so honored to have awesome friends like that, so on that note I did decide to be proud and to share my day at the Sarah Palin Rally.

AWESOME!!!!!!!! We had a wonderful day today, the children and I drove to Richmond along with some of our friends for the Sarah Palin Rally, what an amazing lady, she has so many wonderful things to share and great ideas and she and John McCain are definitely on the road to change. I really feel John McCain has done more than just talk about change he has shown us change first by choosing Sarah Palin, a woman, but not just any woman, a woman who is far removed from DC with fresh thinking, she is a mom, one who deeply cares about her family, she reminded me today why I like their thinking, she remembers that our government is supposed to be a government "by the people for the people", have we all forgotten that, are we so willing to just follow along and do as we are told? I want a government who wants us to stand on our own two feet, support ourselves and our family and be responsible for how we live and choose to educate our family. Obviously since I am a homeschooler I do find it important that I find the person who will see that we are very capable of continuing down the road of home education and bringing our children to adulthood and that they are free thinking and confident adults. I don't want the one who is going tell us how we should live, it is not their business and we should all be wanting that independance.

Anyway I have enjoyed sharing a bit of my views, please always know I truly honor each persons choices and would never force anyone to think the same, that is what makes us so wonderfully individual.

Hugs,
Dawn

Fall is going great!

Well we have been doing lots of fun things. The older boys are taking some great classes, Nolan is taking a wonderful class - Forensics - which he loves, learning so much about how they solve crimes, very cool. Plus he is on the newspaper for our local group and then in the afternoon both he and Aaron are taking an Election Class, which they are both having a great time in. Aaron told me that he loves that class, but not so much the reading club I enrolled them in. I am just happy he likes something :). So the older two are also involved in a wonderful teen group called Teens Reaching Out, they help those in need and come up with ways to raise money, help someone in need and so on. Great group of kids. My younger two are enjoying meeting new friends while their brothers are in their classes and bowling etc.

Last Thursday evening we were able to go see the Sarah Palin / Biden debate on screen at our local convention center, it was a fun environment to be in and the kids also had a good time, of course mostly because their friends were also there :)


Next Monday 10/13/08 we are headed down to see Sarah Palin at a Rally in Richmond, I am so excited, what a great experience for the children and my first rally ever, so cool. I will post pics on the post after that event.

That is about it for now.
Dawn

The Election

I usually try to keep my opinions to myself, but have decided this go round to voice my choices. So I now have a yard sign posted in my front yard and stickers for my car and a good friend forwarded me this link and I watched it and felt compelled to post it here and share it with others.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMouthPeace

Sorry it is a short post today. I will get to working on a real post very soon.
Dawn

Gone Camping

What a wonderful experience, we went with a group of friends to celebrate a birthday, the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and so did Dave and I. I loved the whole experience, well except for some of the middle of the nights sounds. I must say the food was one of the best parts for me, I learned about something called a mountain pie, have you every heard of them? They are fantastic, you pretty much take anything and put it between two pieces of square white breat and then bake it over the fire in this mountain pie cooker, yummy. You can make pizza ones, ham and cheese and so many other things for the meal and then for dessert, oh my gosh, I could eat them every night for dessert, some pudding, or cherry pie filling bake it and add powered sugar, so fun to make and just plain yummy. Yeh pretty funny for those of you who know me and my preference for organic goodness. Everything in moderation is my new motto, especially a mountain pie :)

It is funny to see how learning can happen without even trying, there was science, home-ec, history, caring for nature and even a bit of math (that came at figuring how much of each thing to cook for breakfast for our rather large group). My goal is to have the kids journal a bit of their experience. Samantha learned about helping a creature in need, we found a jelly fish on the beach and she scooped it up and put it back in the water and off it swam, err maybe floated or whatever it is they do, so cute. The older children had a wonderful time with their friends. Overall it was a great first camping experience for some of our kids and a great second camping experience for the rest of us. We can't wait to go again.

So judging by the time.....

elapsed from my last post you can probably guess that school has started here in our home, and with that comes the swarms of activities that come with being a homeschooling family. My oldest son is taking a Forensics class, the older two together are taking an election class, not my favorite thing, as I really don't like what politics bring out in people, but it is good for them to learn about the process. Plus there are the fun things such as bowling league, reading club, newspaper, PE at the gym and the fun assorted field-trips we will be taking. So all in all it has been a good couple of weeks. I have also kept many of my goals for our bookstore and would really love to see our business continue to grow. I am also in the process of teaching the older two how to start their own business, one being too young to be hired on outside the home and he really desires some spending money and the other although old enough to work outside the home at 16, it is finding the place in the schedule, so I thought they could start their own business and learn from it and in the process earn a little. I am always looking for suggestions in that area:).

I also managed to finish the book I was reading, The Shack, defnitely a fantastic book. I am realizing I have a lot of work to do.

See you next time.