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NaBloPoMo’s topic this month is art. I think it’s a topic I can come up with a blog post for every day, so I think I’ll give it a shot this month. Maybe it will get my brain moving as well as get me back into blogging as a regular part of my day.

We started back to school at the beginning of August, trying to tackle the rest of modern history before we bring on the science, the math, and whatever else it is we’re supposed to be doing. I grossly underestimated the amount of time this is going to take, but that’s okay, we’ve had some really good discussions and learning going on. I’m pleased to see the kids taking more of an interest in history. Finally.

This morning we started off by finishing reading an historical fiction book, “Witness” by Karen Hesse and discussing racism & the KKK in the 1920s, which is the main topic of the book. Our discussion drifted into the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, which brought us to watching Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech on youtube. Coincidentally, that speech was given August 28, 1963 - 47 years ago tomorrow.

Earlier in the morning Chris O’Donnell had posted a link to this editorial cartoon on his facebook page and I couldn’t help but see the tie-in. I showed the kids and asked them what they thought it meant and what they thought of it, and showed them a Venn diagram I had posted a link to on facebook earlier this week. Both related to the current theme of hatred toward Muslims in America. All three could see the connection of everything we had covered in just a short time, and that prejudice is still alive and well in the United States of America.

We concluded that prejudice and hatred are an all too common theme in our history, which brought us to one of my favorite quotes:

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. - Winston Churchill.

You’d think that was the end, right? The lesson was hammered home when an old classmate of mine (all through Catholic school, mind you) made a comment on a facebook “discussion” about letting “them” know they’re not welcome here (sorry folks, no link there. avert your eyes from the spectacle).

I couldn’t have written a better lesson plan that rolled all into one connected day if I had tried.

What have you learned today?

I got this from a discussion that ensued after Meg posted a link on her facebook page to the essay There Is No Such Thing as Half.

You can find the template to Where I’m From here. It looked a lot easier than I found it to be. I wanted to focus on the positive aspects of my childhood instead of going where I ought not to go. My mood has been pretty well sucky lately so that’s where the hard part came in, trying to make my brain find the happy memories. It’s not exactly like I wanted it but I can only procrastinate for so long before I blow something off completely so I figured I’d leave it as is. I’m glad I finally finished it, it brings back good memories and gives me warm fuzzies to re-read it. I know it won’t give everyone else the pictures it creates in my mind, but that’s okay, it’s more for me than for anyone else. It’s a fun little exercise, I recommend trying it for yourself.

But I still don’t know whether to check that dang “Hispanic” box.

WHERE I’M FROM 

I am from cheap canvas tennis shoes, from coconut smelling suntan lotion and hot summer days.

I am from the yellow house on the hill, which my mom has called home since before I was born.

I am from the mulberry bush outside my gram’s house, and the hours spent eating more berries than ever made it into her house. From big oak shade trees that kept our house cool in the summer and gave us leaves to crunch through in the fall. From the enormous garden that we spent hours in picking fresh vegetables.

I am from big Sunday dinners at grandma and grandpa’s house with aunts, uncles, and cousins, and oyster stuffing and smoked ham, and stubbornness, from Dorothy and Magdaleno and Edith.

I am from loud, large extended families and kindness.

From “eat all your vegetables” and the Golden Rule.

I am from Sunday morning Mass, where we sat in the front pew like a good Catholic family, or skipped out in favor of rolls and doughnuts from the little bakery down the road.

I’m from Des Moines and Mexico and Ireland and Germany, from fried chicken at picnics and hot sausage sandwiches on Vienna bread and a seemingly endless supply of home canned green beans.

From the kidnapped teen bride of my great-grandfather, from the Smiths that stepped off the Mormon trail and made their home in Knoxville, Iowa and from the grandfather that I don’t really remember, except that one Christmas Eve he gave me and my cousin toy sewing machines.

I am from my parents’ enormous photo collections taken with my dad’s fancy camera. I am from my gram’s little cedar chest, which holds my cherished treasures of the past.

motivation. I started a post the other day, but kind of lost momentum after I had to get up off the couch and fix Matt lunch. I might finish it. Some day. It’s hard getting back into blogging after such a long time out of it and being used to throwing out my thoughts one sentence at at time on facebook. It makes my brain hurt.

blog post. he.

I just had to point out a few funny/sad items from an Altoona “magazine” we get with upcoming events, cutsie little stories, etc. I’ve been hanging onto them for a while and ran across them today. I am not putting the name of said publication to protect the stupid.

Item #1
There’s an article in there about one of the new teachers that will be starting this fall. Here’s the quote from the article:

When Braun was growing up she wanted to be a nurse, but found the profession required “too much math.”

I found that to be quite sad that she would then think, “hmm, what profession will not require so much math?” As a nurse, I don’t even think we use much math. What, convert an ounce to cc? Convert pounds to kg? Oh noes! Really. It’s not that hard.

Item #2
This is in every issue and it reeks of irony.

Wednesday, July 21, 8 pm - Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Old Town, use parking lot behind the bar.

Nuff said on that one.

I decided to take a detox bath this morning. I don’t know how physically detoxed I am from it, but relaxing in a quiet room, behind a locked door, gave me time to think.

I’ve had a lot going on lately. All my stress, all my worries, all my sadness, usually come out as anger. And I’ve been very angry lately. It’s been easy to put it on some external sources of stress and frustration, like Homeschool tumbling.

They frustrate me. I like to know well in advance what to expect. The girls’ dance studio puts out picture, rehearsal, and recital information 5-6 weeks in advance. All costs are laid out up-front in August. I realize I am dealing with a very organized studio, but I like that. I don’t like extra practices that I’m told about the night before, leaving me no time to work out a different schedule. I don’t like finding out a week before pictures that the girls are supposed to have their hair in two French braids, especially when one had her hair cut shorter just a few weeks before, and it’s too short to braid. I don’t like when their practices run long and I have somewhere to be.

Why is it that different from when Allie has had extra practices for competition team? And while I was soaking, relaxing, and thinking, it came to me: I really don’t want to be at homeschool tumbling.

There are several reasons for it. I’ve known for a while that I was uncomfortable with the group. Long before I stopped going to church, long before my husband decided he didn’t believe in God, long before I decided that most likely I will spend my entire life wondering - not knowing - if there is a God, I felt like I was a fair person and tried to include everyone. This group, despite that it is a Christian group, is not like that.

Right now I think the biggest reason I don’t want to be there is that I resent being left there by my friend, Mitzi. It’s not her fault, but damn I am angry about it! Her oldest son, Blake, was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma in February. Understandably, they are too busy to continue tumbling. Every day at tumbling reminds me of why Mitzi isn’t there with me for our usual laughs, talks, and generally good times. I miss the way things used to be. And I know they will never be the same.

Blake is the kind of person all moms dream of their daughters growing up and marrying. His kind heart shines through, he’s a hard worker, and I rarely saw him without a smile before he got sick. His future is uncertain, and it’s just not fair. I hate to see him and his family have to go through all this.

Savannah, Blake’s sister and Jessica’s best friend, posted this earlier today on her facebook page:

Happiness is not controlled by your circumstances. Happiness is a choice. Choose happiness.

Thanks, Savannah, for being so wise beyond your years, you are absolutely right. I love your whole family, you guys are awesome people, and I miss seeing you every week.

And now that you all know how much of a selfish control freak I am, hopefully I am done detoxing my emotions and can get on with following Savannah’s advice.

I can’t believe it’s been nearly a year since I’ve blogged. I blame it on facebook. But I have a couple posts in the works, so maybe I’ll actually get back into this.  Maybe…

It was beautiful this afternoon, so beautiful that Matt and Allie decided to stay home and play outside (gasp!) rather than go to see the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. As you can imagine I was delighted, not only because of the 30 bucks it would have set me back and that I’ve had a back ache and would be uncomfortable in a cheap theater seat, but because well, I would have had to sit in a theater and watch Alvin and the Chipmunks.

While they were playing I decided to run to Target, my favorite discount chain store to pick up some new pj’s for Don, since he is going in for a sleep study tonight. Honestly, he does have pajamas that he usually wears - he is too paranoid that the house will catch on fire and he won’t have time to put on a pair of pants before diving out the window totally nekkid for all the old nosy neighbors to see - but they’re embarrassingly ragged, or “comfy” as he prefers to say. Hopefully the sleep study will go well and I won’t just be stuck rolling him side to side all night long for the next 50 years or until I go deaf and can’t hear him snore.

Anyway, back to Target. It is my favorite because it’s not Wal Mart, and they have great clearance deals. How can you not love a good clearance? Of course the flannel pjs were on clearance, as well as many, many, many other things. I was giddy from the sight of all of those CLEARANCE signs.

I went in for a $10 pair of flannel pants, and came out with a cartload of clothes and $200 poorer (shh, don’t tell Don, he doesn’t part well with his money). They were all great deals and (mostly) things we needed. And as a bonus, I didn’t forget the pj’s I went in for.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, I’m happily skipping along behind my shopping cart full of bargains and no one is even trying to run me over in the parking lot. What a joyous day! I load the van, put the cart in the cart corral like a good little shopper, and head for home. Fifteen minutes later I pull my dirty little van in the driveway and begin to gather things to take in the house - the library bag, some stray wrappers, my bargains, a few stray barrettes, my purse… My purse.

I run into the house, throw a few Target bags of clothing at the kids and screech, “I think I left my purse in the caaaaart!” or something like that. I dash back out to the van to grab the other bags and look one more time. Still no purse. Inside, Allie answers the phone - it’s Target, they have my purse.

Let me tell you, having to pick up your forgotten purse makes you feel like a total imbecile. The guy at the customer service desk said, “You’re not the first person to do this, that’s why we have this big log book.” And I had to put my real name, address, phone number, and signature in the log book, acknowledging that I was indeed the dumbass that forgot their purse. But I do have kind of an excuse, lame as it is. My purse is RED. The cart is RED. It blends right in. Just like the HyVee grocery carts.

Yep, it was the second time I had driven off while my purse was still nestled safely in the seat of the cart, only last time I realized it sooner and was able to retrieve it from the cart corral. Stupid red purse. It will be cut into a million tiny pieces and put in the garbage, as soon as I am not too embarrassed to go back to Target to buy a new purse. I don’t have another one right now, the dog barfed in my other one, so that went in the garbage too. I don’t have very good luck with purses lately.

I planned on doing national blog whatchamacallit this month, to try to get me back into blogging for the new year. I missed the first day, so not off to a great start, eh? I think I’ll still try; if I give up because I think I’ve already failed, I’ll never get anything going. Does that make sense to anyone but me?

The blog topic for January is “Best”, whatever that means. I guess for today that word means to me putting my best effort into the things I start this year, even if I should have started them sooner, and not worrying about starting at the “right time”. I can say I should have done this or that back when ____, but it’s not going to help me out right now. The important thing is to do it now. I have a horrible procrastinative streak in me, and the only way to get rid of it is to tell that little bugger to shut the hell up and just do whatever it is I need to get done.

And today, the second day of the new year, is the day to start.

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged, or even looked at our blog. I thought that maybe we should get rid of it so I can stop having that “I should blog something” feeling. But I’m kind of sentimentally attached, since it has a bunch of stuff from our short-lived traveling days and other happy times.

I’m not sure why I haven’t been blogging, whether it’s that I’ve grown bored with it, have nothing new to say, have a hard time putting what I have to say into words, or just don’t have the need to write what we are doing for all the world to see. It’s not like I haven’t had time. But the fact is, our blog is something I would be sad to see go.

So just maybe I’ll make it back here a little sooner.

what part of these mapquest directions make any sense?? If I want to go from Altoona, Ia to Lamoni, Ia without taking I-80, It won’t let me take the 65/69 bypass directly…I end up going in circles.

Turn RIGHT onto NE UNIVERSITY AVE/IA-163 W.
Merge onto US-65 S via the ramp on the LEFT toward INDIANOLA.
Take the SE 64TH AVE exit, EXIT 73.
Turn LEFT onto SE ARMY POST RD/SE 64TH AVE.
Merge onto US-65 N toward MASON CITY.
Take the E UNIVERSITY AVE/IA-163 exit, EXIT 79, toward PLEASANT HILL.
Turn LEFT onto IA-163 W/E UNIVERSITY AVE.
Merge onto US-65 S via the ramp on the LEFT toward INDIANOLA.
Merge onto US-65 S/US-69 S/HIGHWAY 69 via EXIT 70A toward INDIANOLA.
Merge onto IA-5 S toward CARLISLE/MASON CITY.
IA-5 S becomes US-65 N.
Take the SE 64TH AVE exit, EXIT 73.
Turn LEFT onto SE ARMY POST RD/SE 64TH AVE.
Merge onto US-65 S via the ramp on the LEFT toward INDIANOLA.
Merge onto IA-5 N.
Take the 85TH AVE exit, EXIT 97, toward FLEUR DR.
Turn LEFT onto 85TH AVE/85TH ST.
Merge onto IA-5 S.
Merge onto US-69 N/HIGHWAY 69 via EXIT 70B toward DES MOINES.
Merge onto IA-5 N.
Merge onto I-35 S toward KANSAS CITY.

That is so screwed up.

My poor, abandoned blog. Every now and then I visit here, hoping someone blogged something, hoping to come up with some brilliant thing to post, but nothing. I keep thinking I’ll get some big inspiration and start blogging away again. We didn’t even blog Matthew’s 11th birthday last week. Happy birthday, little guy, we still love you even if we don’t blog every milestone.

I have just not felt like blogging lately. Me and about 20 other bloggers I read. It must be the season.

So just what the heck have we been doing? I’m not sure. We’ve been busy but never with anything terribly exciting. On the homeschool front, tumbling wrapped up for us in March. The kids are getting close to “finished” with school for the year, I hope to have loose ends wrapped up this week. We took today off though while Jess went to Adventureland (amusement park) with the local homeschool teen group, so we may seep into next week. Actually, I’m ready to say “screw it” and call it good. I can’t say they’re learning much, their hearts and heads aren’t into it, and neither is mine. So never mind, we’ll be done Friday.

Jess will be high school age next year, so we have been doing a little investigating into classes available to her. She isn’t too interested, but I want her to know the specials, like art, are available if she wants to take a class or two. I’ve also been looking at the graduation requirements, and some of them are stupid and a waste of time. There are some quite lame classes you can fill your time with as well. Who needs the class on learning to live as an adult? Just stupid. I’ve mostly been looking at what colleges want to see though. We are operating under the assumption that Jess will go to college, but if she finds something she enjoys and doesn’t need it, we’re fine with that. But our goal is to have her prepared for any route she chooses.

Matt goes to the pediatrician Friday. A few weeks ago he mentioned “that pain” that he gets in his chest when he’s running or playing…yeah, that’s what I said too, “Uh, WHAT pain??? As if it were a normal thing. He’s not real good at expressing himself, so I’m not all too clear on what exactly is going on. It could just be from being out of breath, but I worry because as a baby he had a heart murmur and saw a pediatric cardiologist who said it would fix itself, but there’s never been any follow up on it. His heart really pounds when he’s been running. I dug out my stethoscope and listened but I haven’t worked peds for almost 11 years (I was pregnant with Matt) and I’ve never been good with abnormal heart sounds so it was kind of pointless. We also have asthma in the family, so I don’t know if that plays into it, but I really want to have this followed up on soon. And I’m not going to let it go with a quick listen and an “I don’t hear anything abnormal”, I want some actual follow-up testing.

We have no soccer games this weekend and I am glad! Matt has two games left, Jess has three, but we get a weekend off to do other fun stuff like build a deck. Okay, I’d much rather watch soccer

Allie has been to 3 dance competitions and recital is only a week away, then she’s on summer break. She has national competition in June, dance “camp” in July, and classes restart in August, so there’s not much break to the break.

Life with the dog is going fine. Don takes him running with him in the morning on most days. I can tell when he didn’t go running because the dog is a bit spazzier and tries to drag me out the door and down the street. He’s a smart guy though, and has figured out I don’t run unless my life is in danger.

We’re looking at a trip to the east coast this summer, but haven’t had much time to do any planning, so I don’t know if it will happen. We want to visit DC museums and Civil War battlefields mostly (okay, I can only speak for me, that’s what I want to see) and the ocean. I could spend a couple months there and not run out of places to go, but it would only be a week whenever we can squeeze it in, so I’m going to have to trim my list down a bit.

That’s all for now. I’m going to try to blog a bit more in the future. I think it helps keep my head cleared of a bit of the clutter that usually occupies it.

well, beyond words for me.

Did you know that some women eat or ingest their placenta?

And I thought burying it in the back yard was weird.

When we were in Portland I got an email from our supervising teacher setting our appointment for our final meeting this school year. I didn’t have my calendar with me, and surprise, surprise, I forgot to put it down when I got home. It got lost in the inbox.

I got an email from her this afternoon, saying she hoped everything was okay and let her know when I would like to reschedule. I couldn’t figure out what the heck she was talking about at first, it took my brain a few minutes to realize that it was already the end of April.

I have been this way since I got back from Portland. Sarah, I think I left my brain somewhere in your house, could you send it to me when you find it? Hopefully Charlie hasn’t gotten to it. They’re kinda hard to replace.