An Evening Daybook Plus More. . .

Here. This artwork will do until I can get up some photos.

I like it! It's sweet.

Where I am. . .

I’m sitting at the kitchen table. The kitchen is tidy and well-lit as afternoon begins to darken into evening. (Later: At least this is where I was when I started this thing! I’ve been writing the post off and on this evening, between doing other things.)

What I hear. . .

I am listening to the CD Mozart for Morning Coffee. It isn’t morning, and I am not drinking coffee, but the music is light and cheery, matching my mood. The furnace rumbles as it presses warm air through the vent behind me.

I am wearing. . .

Minnetonka moccasins. Blue jeans. A grey tank top under a light-weight, super-comfy grey cardigan with small white polka dots. I received the cardigan as a Christmas gift from Josiah and Aimee, and I get compliments on it every time I wear it. I am wearing the same necklace that I wear every single day. It is a small, simple silver necklace with colored (costume) jewels spaced around it; the necklace is understated and pretty (and I get many compliments on it, too). My grandmother wore this necklace every single day for many years, and she gave it to me as a gift before she died. Now I wear it every day because I love and miss Grammy, and I would love to be just like her!

In my kitchen. . .

I have been eating a lot of “raw” foods (probably more than 75% of my diet), many of them from Mimi Kirk’s book or from her recipe videos on you-tube. I love her raw muesli. I make it routinely, top it with bananas and pomegranate seeds, and pour homemade pumpkin seed milk or almond milk over it. I served this to Melissa when she was here recently, and she loved it, too. Often, I have Mimi’s chia seed “tapioca” for breakfast or for dessert. Actually I am eating it right now, and I really love this stuff. (I keep saying I “love” my food, and I do.) What a great, healthy thing to eat if you’re into chia seeds! (They are super-nutritious and energy-giving.) In my opinion, this really does taste deliciously like tapioca! For awhile now, my early-every-morning alkalinizing drink has been cucumber, lemon juice, and water whizzed in the blender (and then I rub the cucumber peels on my face, leave it for awhile, and rinse!). I still have a green smoothie every day, too, and this always includes kale or spinach. In addition to my almond butter-miso-raw honey spread, I mixed butter with raw honey, Indian chili powder (hot!), and cinnamon to spread over toast, too. I still braise lots of veggies and sometimes roast them, and I eat different kinds of rice bowls with lots of vegetables, too. Oh, I’m eating lots of different things that make me feel healthy, clean, bright, and strong! J

What I’ve been doing. . .

Well, I rode up to Portland for the day with my sister, JoAnne, this past week. We stopped up the highway a ways at the town of another sister of ours to meet her at a coffee shop. She would have joined us for the trip to Portland, but there wasn’t room in the car (drat!). It was really fun to visit with Nancy. From there, we drove north to Portland to the apartment that Aimee and Josiah share with Melissa to pick up JoAnne’s daughter, Alia, who had been visiting the girls for a few days. JoAnne’s gang took off for IKEA, and Melissa and I followed soon after, but we stopped off for lunch at Native Bowl, a great food cart in Portland that serves amazing vegan rice bowls. (The lady who owns/runs it is gorgeous and has this awesome online cooking show.) I ordered the Couch Bowl—pronounced “kooch”—and ate it in the car as Melissa and I headed to IKEA to catch up with the rest of the gang. We really had a lovely talk in the car, and I was thankful to have just a little bit of time with my daughter. We roamed IKEA, and somehow Nicky and I ended up shopping together. I wasn’t going to buy anything, but I walked out of the store with a white serving tray that I liked (I did pay for it!). Before hitting I-5 to go back home, we stopped by one of Portland’s many great food co-ops where there is an excellent smoothie/juice cart outside. Drinks for everyone! But I bought a minneola and a bar of dark chocolate with salted almond instead. We drove away and chatted all the way down the highway and arrived home after dark. It was a fun day.

Okay. I think I got carried away with that one day.

Today was a gorgeous, clear, sunny, chilly Sunday. I went to church and sat with my sister’s family, as usual. The sermon was excellent. After church, I went home with my sister’s gang and printed out my booklist for this next term. Zane and I decided to ride the bus together to the university, but after we stood at the bus stop for a long time and the bus didn’t come and didn’t come, we suddenly remembered that it was Sunday, and the bus schedule is different on Sunday, so we started walking down the sidewalk toward campus because the sunny, cool air felt so nice that we wanted to be outside. We walked about a mile and a half before we saw the bus coming behind us, and we waited for it at the next stop. At the university, Zane and I both bought our books for winter term, and then we sat in the bookstore and waited for JoAnne and Alia to catch up with us. I had a great visit with Zane, both on our walk and at the bookstore. After Alia bought the things she needed, we all went to Trader Joe’s to stock up on food stuff, and then I was dropped off at home.

Okay. I got carried away with this day, too.

What I am reading, listening to, watching. . .

The Hidden Power of Kindness by Lawrence G. Lovasick; Parables of the Christ-Life by Lilias Trotter; Live Raw by Mimi Kirk; Tim Keller sermons on CD;

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink; Mariam’s Kitchen by Elizabeth Ehrlich; you-tube clips from the old What’s My Line? TV show (don’t ask me how I got started with this!); I Love Lucy you-tube clips; Mimi Kirk’s raw food videos (she’s good); various Arvo Part CD’s; Café de Paris Accordion Classics; A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson. (I am not delving into anything mind-bendingly deep or challenging.)

How I am taking care of my health. . .

Eating very well and staying hydrated. Going to bed early and sleeping plenty. Exercising routinely. Going outside. Using non-toxic products for home and body care. Making sure I laugh every day (hence the Lucy clips online), which isn’t hard to do around my extended family! Dealing well spiritually with stress and emotions (striving to let go, pray more, and trust God; aiming to contentedly go with the flow of my days and to embrace interruptions and the unexpected).

Plans for the future. . .

Do first things first. Study hard—effectively and efficiently. Don’t waste time. Be a little more giving and attentive in my relationships.

Questions you have asked me recently:

What I am studying. . .

What are my plans for school and after (Michele asked this one)? I don’t really talk much about this, even with my friends because I’m not entirely sure what the future holds! I have a plan, but I tell the Lord all the time that I only want to be in His will. I ask Him to guide me, to open doors, to redirect me whenever He sees fit, and to give me ears to hear and eyes to see so that I will always follow Him. No need to worry about that last bit, though, because He just seems to get us where He wants us when we are seeking His will (in spite of us!). So, unless I am redirected somewhere along the way, I am aiming to finish my BA soon, and I will be applying to grad schools to work toward an MA in counseling. I am considering three schools for my masters degree, but one of them has emerged as a strong favorite, for a number of reasons. With counseling there are a lot of possibilities, and I have quite a few ideas in my mind regarding what I might do that I am juggling and praying about. I definitely like the idea of working in a capacity where I am directly helping others, so counseling appeals to me, plus age is not a detriment when working in this field, and I am no twenty-something student!

Living slowly. . .

Jennie wondered if I might have time to post the second part of my speaking notes on margin or whatever it was that I called it in the post she is referring to. I have looked at those notes again, and they really are sort of in a code that must have made some sense to me in 2005 when I used them to speak to a group of women. But today, they look like a disordered jumble of thoughts and ideas that would take quite a bit of time to reassemble into something coherent. And the thing is, my thinking on this “slow life” thing has developed a bit more since I wrote those notes. It hasn’t changed, but has become clearer and simpler. I actually feel stronger about it now than I did before. I think this world is just way too busy and distracted, and people’s lives seem fragmented, in my opinion (though I don’t mean to thrust that opinion on anyone). My point of view is not a pattern for proper living.

But I am glad that I chose, and still choose, a slow life. There are times when things get busy for me now, like when midterms and finals hit each term, but it is temporary, and I go right back to slow when it’s over. There are just many, many benefits to taking life more slowly than most of the rest of the world does.

For one thing, it is spiritually important, and I think this is vastly undervalued. Pascal said that the whole problem with man is that he can’t sit alone in his own room. I think there is a lot of truth to this! When we stop moving around like crazy (even if we are doing good things), the dust from the swirl of busyness settles and we begin to see more clearly. “Be still and know that I am God.” Be still. In stillness, our hearts and minds are quiet, and we hear better. We see both ourselves and God more clearly: We begin to see ourselves as we are, we begin to understand our struggles, we begin to grasp the mercy and love of God, and we begin to discern the path we should be walking. Stillness and quietness are foundational for gaining knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Slowing things down helps us to stop spinning our wheels and gain some traction. We actually make more/deeper/better progress when we take our time.

Jesus didn’t seem to be hurrying about. Crowds were always demanding of him, always pressing against him, always pursuing him. Jesus met many (not all) of the needs of those around him, and he was tired, but with all of the demands on him (and his real ability to meet each one) he didn’t go into hyper-ministry. He took time out with his disciples (he cooked them fish!). He took time to pray at length—the Bible says that very early in the morning, Jesus went off alone to a solitary place to pray.  And when there were demands on him, he was in no hurry and under no sense of pressure to meet them now. He arrived at the home of Mary and Martha, three days after Lazarus died, and they were upset with him because they had called for him to come days ago! Jesus kept things simple. His pace was not frantic. He knew the importance of being quiet and being alone. We can learn from him, just as he says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

We live in a time when slowing down does not simply mean that we casually choose not to get caught in the speedy flow of our culture, but, increasingly, we must absolutely do battle against speed in order not to get caught up in the flow. And nowadays we have the added pressure placed on us by modern technology to be ever-available and always-distracted. But battling against this is very much worth the fight, in my opinion.

We have a huge, wonderful source of information right at our fingertips. This is amazing, and it can be extremely useful, but it can also really hinder the healthy flow of our real, everyday lives. I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone what amount of technology should be allowed in their lives, but I am constantly rethinking the role I will allow it to play in my life, and I like to keep it to a minimum (whatever that means, right?! and I don’t always succeed, but most of the time I think I do). I don’t want the flow of my physical life to be continually interrupted and disrupted by devices that can get to me, or capture my attention, 24 hours a day.

I will say that living “slowly,” or with margin, is not just about staying home or keeping too-much technology at bay, but it’s also about how we live at home and with finances and with everything! A super-cluttery, always-way-too-messy-out-of-control house and wildly undisciplined living do not make an environment that is conducive to creating a life of margin and peace and ministry.

And now I get to type my favorite Blake quote one last time (!): “All in order, sweet and lovely.” And I’ll quote the Bible, too: “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.” And why not thrown in Anne Morrow Lindbergh who said that it is only framed in space that beauty blooms? And all of this goes for our whole life; order is not just about the arrangement of our stuff! A beautiful life of margin saves space—uncluttered and unhurried—for the unexpected, for surprise, for serendipity, for spontaneity, for compassion, for instant hospitality, for relationships, and for lots of good things to happen.

I going to end this part abruptly without having really said what I wish I could say, but it’s time to put up the post and move along because I have a FAFSA to fill out before I go to bed! (And I sort of cringe that I'm posting another sorta-sloppy, incomplete message!)

Well, that’s all. I will add a few photos to this post in the next day or two because I don’t want the opening post of my blog to be all text, but I won’t write any more posts. I will likely return to the comments, though, and respond to some of those. I wanted to do that this evening but have run out of time.

And just so you know, I won’t be popping back in occasionally to put up a note. I need to focus on the things the Lord put on my heart when I felt led to shut down the blog. It’s time for me to be quiet.

I said I would probably never blog again, and I think that might be true. But if I ever do—way down the road—yes, I will put up a note here and at HDH (but don’t expect it), so if you want to keep me in your reader, that’s a good way to find out if a post pops up. But, on the other hand, if I never do put up that post, I’ll just be cluttering up the list of blogs on your reader!

It’s taken me a long time to leave after I told you I would be ending the blog, hasn’t it, but I wanted to give advance notice rather than just abruptly going away.

Thanks so much for being here. I’ve so enjoyed getting to know you and spending time with you these last months. (Gosh, I have a lump in my throat!) And thank you, again, for your sweet, truly encouraging notes to me and for your prayers. If you think of me down the road, please pray for me! I will pray for you when I think of you.

God bless.

A Little Note. . .

Almost as soon as I set my new IKEA serving tray

in the middle of the table, fruit began to migrate to it.

Updated: Okay, you guys! I'll leave up the post below. :-) I really wondered if anyone would be able to make any sense of it. I'm glad you did. And, eventually, I'll go through it and clean up some of the grammar and mechanics messes in the post.

Judi, I'm glad you saw that really long post about high school below because I am going to remove it from the blog in the next couple of days. (I'm just giving you warning in case you are interested in reading it again.) I can't bear to keep that gigantic, hilarious mess of a post as one of the last things I put up on my blog!

I will put up one more post later today with a random stuff (maybe I'll go out with an evening daybook post or something), and it will include more answers to some of the questions that were asked here.

Thanks for being here, everyone, and for all of your nice comments and encouragement. I've really appreciated you all, and this has been fun!

Answer to Questions About Our High School (Seriously By Far the Longest Post I Have Ever Written). . .

Here is an example of a project that one of my daughters created
for one of her high school science "courses" (ornithology).
(Above are just a few sample pages from the book.
It's actually fairly long.)
There was a nest box hanging inside my fenced herb garden, and one day this daughter,
who happened to be studying birds and doing a lot of bird-watching,
noticed some bird-activity going on at the nest box. She investigated
and realized that a pair of house wrens were building a nest.
She decided to document the process--from nest-building to babies flying away--
with photographs, artwork, and a journal. This book is her finished product.
The actual book is quite beautiful and interesting.
The photos don't at all do it justice. I treasure this book.
(Sorry the pictures are of such poor quality. They are all I have on hand.)

Well. I must say I have really tried to write concise but thorough answers to the questions that have been asked, and I have struggled to get it done. Today I will attempt to put at least a few notes down for each question. I will admit that when I said to “ask me anything!”, I was just thinking of little light questions, but of course (I should have known), if there’s something you’ve been wanting to know from me for awhile about something I’ve posted in the past, you would ask for a bit more information regarding those things. And I don’t mind at all that you asked, by the way!

I think the reason it has been hard to answer the questions is because it was hard enough for me when I tried before, and when I was posting in the summer I had waaaaay more time on my hands to think about the answers and then to write about them than I do now. Attempting to do this while my mind and attention have been on family and the holidays has been even more difficult than before. Plus, this winter break I’ve tried to create some space between the computer and me because I do so much of my homework and so many assignments on the computer or online during the term. And, like I said, I’ve just been focusing on other things.

But here I go. A few notes that will surely be insufficient:

[Back after writing this post to laugh at myself for saying that! This turned out to be one really long, super-jabbery ramble with quite a lot of redundancy (actually, it's a gigantic mess!) that I hope is not too unwieldy to manage. Now that I am finished, I have skimmed quickly over what I have written, and I don’t know if it will make sense to you, but here’s crossing my fingers that it will make some sense because I don’t have time to edit the post to make it clean and tight (and brief). I guess the other questions I meant to answer will have to be addressed in the next day or two--but not at nearly this length!--because I can’t write any more today! School starts again on Monday, and I won’t be posting any more from then on.]

Here goes. Regarding our high school homeschool:

I need to start by saying that I am not in any way, nor do I want to be, a homeschool “guru.” What was important to me during our high school years does not reflect what seems to matter to many or most other homeschoolers. I highly recommend looking around the web and at recommended books to help you think about your high school years. Definitely don’t follow our pattern. It won’t work for you. Pray, read, think, seek wisdom from many others, and then make your own pattern!

When we homeschooled, there were a number of books available to help homeschoolers navigate the high school years, but there must be so many more out there now. I don’t know what those books were, but I read a lot of Cafi Cohen. I don’t know if she’s still out there, but I gleaned quite a lot from her books regarding how to think about high school transcripts, college, and more.

My absolute favorite book to read (more for fun than actual guidance) just because it focuses on the unorthodox and it rebels against the traditional system is Cool Colleges for the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different by Donald Asher. Super fun to read if your mind doesn’t like to travel well-worn educational paths. Four years of college on a sailboat? An elite four-year college on a working ranch? Schools that study one subject at a time? Or even traditional colleges? It’s all here, and I think it’s really fun to read!

Another interesting book discusses the huge amount of pressure that is put on high school kids to jump through hoops and exert all of their focus and energy into getting ready to apply to elite colleges. It is Denise Clark Pope’s Doing School.

And for those who feel rebellious about the college hoop-jumping game and who think (about elite schools) “Ivy-Schmivy-Whatever!” but who have super-smart, academically inclined kids: Harvard Schmarvard by Jay Mathews is interesting.

I read these books a long time ago (my kids are ages almost 25, 26, 28, 29 now), and there might be new books available that are as good or better (not that these are necessarily what most people are looking for anyway!). Plus, these books are not so much how-to’s as how-not-to’s or what-else-is-possible. And they are really for those who see the pressure of playing the college game and opt not to.

Anyway.

You might decide you want to put a lot of emphasis on preparation for tests: PSAT, SAT, SAT II’s, ACT, AP, and more. This is a way to get great college scholarships. But I don’t think a test prep book is the best route to take if you want to do well on admissions tests (I’m talking about the SAT or ACT). I think that doing well will come more from the way you approach long-term day-to-day learning and living in your home than from specific test-prep. Has a high level of thinking (partially developed by lots of quality reading, discussing, writing, and doing) been established in your home environment? We can create an intellectual value-system, mindset, and atmosphere in our homes that will allow kids to develop excellence, and this tends to translate very well to testing and college success (keeping in mind that all kids are different and have different inclinations).

But the home and family atmosphere I’m talking about should not be established just so that our kids will do well on tests and in college. For me, it’s really about life. It’s about honoring God by developing the gifts and talents He has given us. But when your kids are in high school, if you want to stress the tests (which I am not going to say is at all wrong!), start looking hard at those tests and consider how you can work to achieve the kind of scores you want. I’m sure there is a lot of information out there about this, so go out and find it if you want it!

We didn’t do that. :-) We didn’t emphasize test prep or tests because we wanted to continue investing our time and energy into the interests, pursuits, and passions the kids were already enjoying. We knew that when our homeschooling days ended, the opportunity to devote our time to these pursuits would never be as free and easy again. And since I was, and am, convinced that interest and passion leads to the best kind of education, why shouldn’t we continue going after it while there was still time?! Those days were relaxed, joyful, disciplined (passion doesn’t mean there isn’t a huge amount of blood, sweat, and tears involved in learning; in fact, there might be more!). I am very happy with the route we chose to take, and I look back at those truly warm, wonderful homeschooling years with a grateful heart.

(Enough with the sentimentality!) What we did was good enough for us. We didn’t focus on test prep, but I did buy a book of real SATs that had been taken in previous years, and the kids tried some of those tests just to get familiar and comfortable with it. Two kids hadn’t done any math for two years when they took the SAT, so I bought a SAT math-prep video course, but it didn’t get used (of course! I should have known this would be the case). Only one of my kids took the three-part SAT that included writing, and she practiced essays from a few online prompts just to get used to the parameters of writing for the test. And we did buy one child a test prep book because she was rusty with math, but I don’t think she looked at it much or found it helpful. She skimmed over her last math book (pre-calculus) and that was good enough for her. That was about it for our “prep.” Pretty much, the kids kept doing what they were doing, and when it came time to take the test, they just went and took it.

And while their scores were not perfect, they were excellent. None of the kids took AP tests, which could have gotten them college credit before ever setting foot on campus. They didn’t do a lot of things other high schoolers do. But you might really want to do those things. They might be just right for your family. By focusing on these tests, you might reduce the number of years it takes to finish college, open doors for admissions to more colleges, and earn great scholarships.

But my kids got terrific academic and leadership scholarships, too, without the focusing on tests (they also did extremely well in college). Their SAT scores were in a range high enough to get them into any college in the US had they wanted to pursue that, but it takes a lot more to get into elite colleges than excellent transcripts and SAT scores. It takes having true passion. It takes being well-rounded. It takes a bit of uniqueness. And it requires logging lots of “service” hours and projects. I think we could have presented a great case that we accomplished all of that. But no matter how you look on paper, there are no guarantees.

In my opinion, college admissions has become a huge, time-consuming game that has become more confusing and overwrought than ever. I’ve watched the process in the last few years (through others), and it strikes me as really ridiculous. If you want to play the game, spend the money, invest the time, and jump through the hoops, do it. I certainly wouldn’t try to talk you out of it. But it surely wasn’t for us, and I would feel even more strongly that way today for us (not for you!). Sorry. I have a hard time holding back my opinion on that one.

At the same time, if your child has an outstanding skill/passion in an area that is really prodigious (not just “mom-and-friends-are-super-impressed”)—in music, arts, sports, writing, involvement, dance, science or tech, math, or anything—the student will very likely be able to get into any school (even the most elite) that is looking for those kinds of students. Many, many perfect SAT scores get rejected at colleges across the country, while kids with passion and special abilities can get in with less than stellar (otherwise) admissions packages.

(Did I say this was going to be brief?! Haha. I’ve bare gotten started and look at me go! And, by the way, don’t take it for granted that I know what I’m talking about. These are just my opinions. Do some reading!)

So, what did my family do in high school? We kept doing what we were doing before high school. The kids continued learning what was interesting to them. We still plugged away at the three basic daily expectations we’d always had—reading, writing, math—but we began to create more of an end-of-the-road strategy. When they approached high school, I sat with each child to talk about what their focus might be. I spent time when the kids were younger reading fairly voraciously about high school and transcripts and what colleges wanted to see on their applications, and I came up with a sort-of plan. I knew I wasn’t going to suddenly start giving assignments to the kids or using curricula (unless they wanted to), so we discussed how we could continue on as we had before and, yet, at the end of high school, be able to create a transcript that reflected an education that colleges would like.

Some unschoolers (though I wouldn’t say we were entirely that) don’t create transcripts. They find other ways to approach college admissions. I, though, believed that we could create transcripts fairly easily and naturally without intruding too awful much into our daily learning rhythms. Plus, it just seemed time to hone in on a goal and end up with a sort or product/record of what had the kids had achieved, and were achieving. And my kids were fine with doing this, though they didn’t look at the transcripts or test scores as saying anything important about their education.

Based on what I read at web-pages and in books, I created a list of course categories and the number of courses that would need to fall under each of these categories in order to create the kind of transcript I wanted to see. It gave us some new direction—a way to home in on a finish—but the path was still pretty loose and free, and it didn’t really alter much as far as our day to day homeschooling rhythm went. We did realize that we would need to include more pointed science studies (two lab courses were minimum requirements at the time). There would need to be a certain number of history courses, English courses, foreign language credits, etc., on the transcripts. (If you have high schoolers and are reading this, be sure to look to see what the expectations are nowadays. I’m not writing everything down, and they also might have changed.)

Instead of me guiding their high school educational journey, the kids and I talked about the inclinations they’d always had in the various subject areas, and we began to think about them in terms of high school credit. In many cases, the kids had already gone well into college-level study in these areas of interest, so this really wasn’t overly challenging. For those not as inclined toward traditional science studies, there are things like botany, ornithology, meteorology, geology, and on and on. And you can turn these into lab sciences, too, without using chemicals, test tubes, and microscopes. Think creatively. (My kids did some pretty cool projects and studies that they loved for their science “labs,” and these were accepted without reservation by all colleges.) If colleges can offer a science course in the geology of national parks or the biology of cancer, why can’t we?! In fact, it was looking at college course offerings that gave me ideas for titles of courses for my kids. We got creative, we made sure the studies were very in-depth, and we had a lot of fun.

My kids got credit in things like Egyptology (and believe me, this one was well, well-deserved!), JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, Medieval Literature, Classical Mythology, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jane Austen, 1920's and 1930's America, WWII (my son read literally 100's of books over the years), and so much more. There was something about woman writers (maybe woman poets?) of the 1920’s. The kids had done a lot of reading about the classical world (and actually all periods of history)—history, literature, philosophy, art, etc., so we created courses from those areas that reflected individual interests and emphases. For science there was physics, biology, human physiology, ornithology, botany, and lots more. I’m having trouble remembering what the course names were (there were some unique, good ones!), but hopefully you get the idea.

We read books, did projects, used resources like Teaching Company CDs (whichever ones the kids wanted to use), had endless discussions about books and history and whatever was being learning, connected with experts, went interesting places, and lots more.

Let your imagination run wild. A child doesn’t need to study English I, II, III, and IV. Be creative. What is interesting to your child? Go with it! And for history/social studies? What about a deep study of the impact on culture of social media? Or what about an elective course in dog training? Or a specific area of photography? Or herbalism? Or business? Or geneaology? Or fashion? Or what about a “PE” credit in hiking/climbing mountains? Or skate-boarding or biking? How about spelunking? Or stamp-collecting (whatever it is called)? Or what about culinary arts (for the passionate baker or cook)? Or Edmund Spenser? Or the Brontes? What about the history of nature writing (or anything else)? Or what about a general science credit in nature on your own property or neighborhood (even in a city, which could be very interesting!)? How about hermeneutics or apologetics or any part of the Bible as literature? What about any culture that exists now or existed in history? Or what about virtually anything?! What are your kids interested in? If a student has a deep interest in a tiny or obscure historical time/person/event/philosophy, this is wonderful. Let him have fun becoming an expert on that. Make it a course on the transcript.

One of my kids got a credit for her study of (it seems funny to call it a study!) the Russian Romanovs (can’t remember how we titled that course), but my daughter had developed true expertise, and her deep study of this one thing led to a huge study of the Revolution, the “isms” of those years, reaching back to Marx and forward into the 20s and 30s and well beyond (on both ends of the timeline). All of this was interest-fueled and surprisingly in-depth. It encompassed people, events, social life, philosophy, psychology, economics, politics, art, music, literature, music, fashion, and so much more. Deep learning can’t help but ripple out further and further, with each new interesting thing creating its own ripples. A whole education can develop this way! Passion takes learning so very much beyond what would occur with mom-given assignments. So, the learning grew and grew, and the reading and research that was done led to enough study to create more than one course out of all of this. (And I have not come close to doing justice to the study referred to in this little paragraph!)

This is how we wanted high school education to take place. For us, it was to be a bigger, more sophisticated, deeper and further-reaching exploration and study of the world than I thought we would accomplish with assignments. For us, when learning happened in this “natural” (but there was vision, discipline, work behind it) manner, it happened deeply and with great interest and passion. Again, one interest is not just an isolated thing. It ends up becoming an education. Or it should. And when a child is in control of following his or her nose in this passionate, curiosity-driven, interest-led way, it is a wonderful thing to watch!

Record keeping?

I simply had a notebook for each child where I kept track of what they did during their high school days. The notebooks weren’t journals; there were no descriptions in it, really. I just kept lists (with enough info to remind me of what was happening). They were only for the purpose of listing everything they had done, read, watched, who they had connected with, and where they had gone-- out in the yard or in the bigger world—to learn more.

I didn’t always keep track daily (in fact, I rarely did). Sometimes I would pick up the notebooks and play catch-up. But I kept a casual eye and mind on these lists, looking for trends. When it looked like a particular interest was approaching what might merit a high school credit, I would talk to the kids about what reading or project or type of writing might be good to do in the future. I would look into things, and they would look into things (they tended to do this all along anyway because they were interested in what they were learning), and we would brainstorm. Sometimes they liked my suggestions or ideas, and sometimes the ideas didn’t align well enough with the kids’ internally-driven learning trajectory, so it was ultimately up to them to decide where to take their learning and what to do.

The kids knew they were expected to collect a certain number of credits for their transcript, and this was a much more motivating way for them to do it than for me to say, “Here, do this.” So, there weren’t any battles over this. I should add that, sometimes, we created new courses of study entirely with the transcript in mind, but they were based on the kids’ inclinations and what sounded interesting to them. Some of these were dropped, and some of them were happily pursued. Whatever our initial intentions were for these courses, though, the end product always looked quite different from that, which is as it should be!

This was all pretty low-key and non-stressful, and it worked for us, but, as I write it, I don’t know how this vision would work for anyone else. It might. It might not. It depends on your family lifestyle, the way you (as parents) live your lives in front of your kids, your homeschool style, the atmosphere of your home, the value you place on intellectual life, and your own, individual, wonderful kids.

The transcripts I created were based on a form (or a synthesis of two or three forms) that I found online. I needed something that didn’t list courses in terms and years because a lot of my kids’ credits were earned over the span of four (or more) years. Or maybe two math levels were done in what would normally be one term. So, the form I created listed credits/courses under subject headings rather than under separate semesters.

I didn’t think about grades until I made the transcripts. Then I just assigned them. Who was going to tell me I couldn’t?

You can order beautiful diplomas online if you want one, or if you end up, for some odd reason, needing it. We didn’t. For college, though, you will need a transcript. OR you can send your kids to a local community college, and in two years, they can earn a high school diploma and an AA degree which means they are ready for their final two years at a four-year college. This can save a whole bunch of money! But it wasn’t for us because. . . well. . . I hope I made it clear above how we wanted to spend our high school days learning at home. It wasn’t by doing someone else’s assignments or by preparing for tests.

Let’s see. Anything else? Maybe just a few random notes. We kept up our morning get-together-at-the-table after chores and breakfast because it remained a good jump-start to our days in the high school years. It was time to read the Bible together, to talk about our day, and to do anything we happened to be doing together at the time. Sometimes there were little things we’d do for fun, like for a while, we did a puzzle of the day (we solved them in groups) during that morning time.

The only thing I can think of that we did together for an extended length of time was art history, and it was about as low-key as could be. I had the Cornerstone curriculum and portfolio (the prints are really nice!). We’d keep whatever print we were studying out on display. We learned really just to look quietly and think about the art in our own way, and we were given a very small amount of information/philosophy of the artist and period of art in order to gradually put together a big-picture of art history. It was a very slow-going, easy approach. We had lots of art history books around the house, and we loved visiting art museums when we could. It was the books and museums that contributed the most to the kids’ love of art. And love leads to individual study, which was very much the case with my kids and art history. They all had their little niche of what was interesting and what they loved, and they pursued it on their own.

I think this is quite long enough! Haha. When I think I’m going to be brief, I can’t help be windy and confusing! I hope you can get something out of this post because I really don’t have time to edit it. And I hope it clears some things up and answers some questions regarding our high school homeschool. (Gosh, we had fun!)

An Illustrated Little Roundup of Things That is Actually Pretty Long. . .

Ah, isn't it cute?!

1. Thrifty. I was at a thrift store with my mom and one of my sisters recently when I spotted this green mug. I held it up in front of the two of them, and they immediately sang out, “Grammy!” Yep. It made us all think of sweet, funny, charming Grammy (we all miss her like crazy). She kept mugs very similar to this one in her kitchen and drank coffee from them every day. So, for 50 cents, I bought the mug, and it is now my new mug of choice when I drink my morning coffee and tea.

Yum. Seriously.

(I cut it in half to show you.) 

2. Tasty. I made the best “raw” and “healthy” treats today! I made my usual chocolate truffle recipe, but today I had the bright idea of forming the truffle balls around a smaller ball of peanut butter (the peanut butter is actually not raw, but the rest of the truffle is). I make 1/3 of a batch of the following recipe: 3 c. dried, unsweetened coconut; 1 ½ c. cocoa powder; 1 c. maple syrup; 1/3 c. coconut butter; 1 T. vanilla; ½ t. salt. Stir everything together. The mixture will be wettish, but add a bit more coconut if is just too wet to handle. Shape into a ball. Make an indentation in it, press in the peanut butter, and reshape the chocolate truffle around the peanut butter. Set in a dish dusted with cocoa powder, and when all truffles are shaped sift more cocoa powder over the top. Cover and keep in fridge (they will firm up in the fridge).

3. Good Reading. I am loving the book I am reading right now. It is called Miriam’s Kitchen (by Elizabeth Ehrlich) and was given to me by my daughter Aimée at Christmas two or three years ago. I’ve started to read the book a few different times, and I’ve liked it, but I've gotten sidetracked on every attempt. The book tells the story about how the cooking and kitchen of the author’s mother-in-law draws her back to her own Jewish roots and faith. I don’t know if it’s because I so very much enjoyed my “Jewish Cultures in America” class last term or what, but the book is just the right thing for me to read right now. It is extremely warm, engaging, and well-written, and the book is full of deep observations and insights.

My favorite college player!

If you follow college football, and you don't know who he is yet,

you will.

4. Coming up. The Rose Bowl. January 2. Oregon vs. Wisconsin. Watch it (and root for Oregon, even if you live in Wisconsin)! I’ll definitely be watching (the game, not you).

Update: Yay! What a crazy game. And my favorite player amazed a lot of people.

A humble, but warm (!), room.

This photo was taken the week I moved in.

The towels have now made way for books and flutes and coffee mugs.

5. Where I hang out the most in my house in winter. The bathroom! It’s so warm in there. Actually, I only retreat to the room now and then throughout the day when it’s extra chilly, but on really cold days, I spend quite a bit of time in there. Sometimes books pile up on that bathroom counter, along with little notebooks and pens. I peruse cookbooks and other books there, play my flute (you didn’t know I played the flute, did you? my playing is nothing to jump up and down about, really, but I’ve been enjoying it again), and I talk on the phone. I take my coffee into the room on extra cold mornings and read my Bible and devotional there. It’s the warmest room in the house by far, and the closest I’ll get in this house to having a woodstove. But, hey—I’m not complaining! I'm thankful to live in this wonderful place.

 Look at me! I stole one of Kim's pictures without permission!

(Kim, if you are mad at me, I will remove this.)

But I wanted you others to see. It's a magical, wintry photo

and it's just one out of about a million nice ones at Kim's blog. (Click.)

6. Good blog. Have I ever mentioned Kim of Starry Sky Ranch here? If not, I don’t know what has taken me so long. I’ve been reading Kim’s blog for years, and she’s been a steady favorite of mine from the very beginning. She’s got a houseful of kids ranging from very little ones to adults (even though she looks about 25-years-old!). She and her family left their Colorado ranch behind and now live in Germany. Kim’s photos are beautiful, her spirit is clear and refreshing, she lives lovely (but wouldn't want me to publicly lavish praise on her), and she has accumulated lot of wisdom over the years that she doesn’t try to foist off on anyone, so just watch and listen, and you’ll glean much from Kim. (No pressure or anything, Kim!)

7. What I ate today. (I used to do these posts occasionally, for some odd reason, so I thought I’d go out with one last food list because I’m sure you care!) Sprouted grain toast with almond butter-miso-honey spread. A whole quart of green smoothie. Three chocolate-peanut butter truffles. Delicious maple-roasted butternut squash (I ate a whole small squash all by myself—there are perks to living alone). Pomegranate seeds. Cashews. Collard leaf wraps with mango-veggie-slaw and peanut sauce (made with raw almond butter). Normally, I eat a big salad, but it didn’t happen today. I got plenty of greens and vegetables, though.

8. Celebrating. It’s New Year’s Eve, after all, but I’m home alone. I suppose I could make some popcorn or eat another chocolate truffle. For sure I’ll relax and read. I think that makes a great celebration. : : : Later, I'm still here--I hear occasional fireworks going off outside, and it's not even close to midnight. I guess I'm celebrating by attaching photos to this post. : : :

Resolutions? I don’t really do them. I just try to start anew whenever I need to. When I realize I’ve gotten off-track (with exercise and health habits, Bible reading and prayer, or anything else), I try to get right back on. When I fall, I just stand back up, dust myself off, deal with any obstacles or hindrances that are tripping me up or blocking my way, and get moving again. I don’t wait for a new day, a new week, a new month, or a new year to do it. God’s mercies are new every morning, but they are also available every minute of every day.

But still, the end of one year and the start of the next naturally lead most of us to reflect and even rethink some things. It’s a good time to remember, appreciate, reflect, pray, and sharpen the vision. And resolutions should be made by all who find them useful! :-)

9. Another good book. The Hidden Power of Kindness by Lawrence G. Lovasick. Becoming truly kind is not a New Year’s resolution, but it’s a lifelong aim or vision that began when I became serious about this book a few weeks ago. I’ve had the book around for years, and when I first got it I liked it fine, but it struck me like one of those old positive-thinking-be-nice-to-everyone-in-order-to-elevate-yourself-or-become-successful books. It seemed to have some good thoughts in it, but I just didn’t get into the book. But when I picked it up again recently, I began to read the book in my normal fashion: I opened it; browsed through it; skipped to the middle, then to the back, then to the front, and all over the place at random, stopping wherever something struck me; looked at the table of contents for the most compelling parts and read those; began to become engrossed in the book; began to be confronted and challenged by it; began to realize the profundity of it; and began to develop a deep desire to live according to its principles (which are really Biblical principles, but expounded wonderfully). I eventually finished the whole thing. This is a deep, powerful, inspiring book, and I realize that being truly kind (loving well) is a serious, challenging discipline that can only happen by the grace of God in person’s life.

Oh, who are those adorable children?!

10. Super fun. Saving the longest part for the end. Christmas at Michelle’s house was fun. She made homemade cinnamon rolls, not only on Christmas morning, but (per unanimous request) she also made them on Tuesday morning. And we ate them with good coffee! (Yay, Michelle! You are awesome!) The kids, as always, cracked me up. Let me tell you just a few little (gripping!) stories of things they said or did.

Let’s start with Liya. We (adults/women) were in the kitchen chatting, as we like to do, and we heard two-year-old Liya gasping and grunting really loudly. We glanced into the living room, and there she was, sitting neck-high in a round basket, and pulling up on the handles with all of her might. She saw us look her way and sputtered, “I can’t pick myself up! I’m too heavy!”

And just a little while later, six-year-old Roman called from the living room, where he was playing legos with Jayden. “Hey, Momma! Is God just playing play with us? Is he controlling us?” Michelle looked at me, puzzled and sort of amused, and I suggested, “Does he mean in the same way he’s playing with his legos?” Michelle asked him if that’s what he meant, and Roman said, “Yeah, is God just playing with us and moving us around?”

And then there was four-year-old Jayden. Just try reading a book straight through with Jayden. It’s not going to happen because the boy is thinking about everything on every page and has a lot to say about it! Aimee and Josiah gave him One Morning in Maine for Christmas, and we read it together a number of times (I don’t mind; I love Robert McCloskey). First, he was tickled pink that Sal (from Blueberries for Sal, our old favorite read-together book) has grown up a bit and is in this new book! We had to talk about that for quite a long time. Then Jayden started noticing things. Like, on one page, when a fish-hawk was flying with a fish in its mouth to a nest high in a snag beside the water, Jayden wanted to know, “Why is the bird flying that way with the fish when the water is over there?” (The bird was flying from the direction of the woods and not the water.) “Good question, JayJay! Why do you think?” And then we talked about the reasons that might have been. And, on another page, when Sal slipped on seaweed on a rock, a loon on the water was said to “laugh.” Jayden said, “Why did the loon laugh at Sal? That was not very nice!” I told him it was okay because Sal was laughing, too, so they were laughing together.

And I suppose I shouldn’t leave out 11-month-old Avery, who thinks she is one of the big kids. She follows them all over and plays what they play. We had to keep an eye on her because she liked to head for the stairs to attempt an ascent, and we meant to keep her safely downstairs. The three older kids were playing “Super Hero,” all in capes and masks. They had created a little fort with a foam sleeping pad, blankets, and pillows. Aimee noticed Avery was suddenly missing and asked where she was. Jayden called out, “We have her in the Batcave,” and Roman announced that they weren’t letting her escape. I peeked over the side of the cave, and there was Avery, happy as could be in her diaper, wearing a red cape with a lightning bolt on the back. The cape was twice as long as Avery.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~ 


Okay. Enough of that. I am working on a post to answer all of the questions that came up in the last several days. It's getting pretty long, and I still have a long ways to go, so I think I'm going to try to cut things way back and be concise(ish--relatively. . .) for once, even if it does mean leaving out a lot.


Happy New Year!

Some of us on Christmas. . .

Our Gang (most of us), Christmas 2011.
At Michelle's and Monty's place.

(You can click the photo for a better view, if you want.)

 I love my family! It was so much fun to get together.

Monty was the photographer,

and I was the one who worked to get the attention of the little ones

so that they would look at the camera.

(I'm not sure how I inspired that look on Jayden's face!)

Hope your Christmas was lovely.

And I hope the rest of the holidays will be, too.

I'll be starting winter term classes on January 9,

and I'll probably put up at least another thing or two or three before then.

For those who asked, I will leave all of my blogs up

and open for reading when I end this one.

Wishing You a Lovely Christmas. . .

 I'm going out of town in the morning to celebrate Christmas with my children and grandchildren. Yay! But I want to wish any stragglers at my blog a truly lovely Christmas/Advent celebration. I think I'll add the wonderful little poem left for me in comments by Rebecca (thank you Rebecca--and everyone else, too--for the comment(s); I'll get back to those when I return):

"Welcome, all wonders in one sight!

...Eternity shut in a span. Summer in winter. Day in night.

Heaven in earth and God in man! Great little one!

Whose all-embracing birth lifts earth to heaven, Stoops heaven to earth."

(Richard Crenshaw, 1648)

I really do appreciate the thoughtful comments very much. Jennie, if you see this, I'm thinking about your request. I don't know if I can actually finish those speaking notes you referred to, but I might write a thought or two before I go. So sorry you were watching for that and that I didn't finish it. I'm not sure I'll get a chance to add more thoughts, so don't count on it! :-)

Adding to this post Saturday morning: I turned on the quiet music of Arvo Part this morning, wishing I had not run out of coffee (!), and sat on the carpet of my peaceful living room floor to open stocking gifts from my mom and my sister. I thought it would be a nice thing to do before leaving town later this morning. As I unwrapped one gift, strong whiffs of coffee wafted out from the paper (yes!). So, I made a French press pot of coffee and sat at the computer with the  intention of working my way through the recent comments so that I could pointedly and mindfully pray individually for each and every one of you.  And I do pray that God will touch you, bless you and your families, give you wisdom all along your way, direct your steps (even when you don't think you know where you're going--He does!), and fill you with His Love and Light and Hope this Christmas season (and always). I pray you (and I) will increasingly know the Great Joy that is found in Him. Have a beautiful, merry Christmas!

The sun came out today, and, inspired by sunlight coming into the house, I started to snap some photos. I was just getting warmed up when my sister called to see if I wanted to go for a stroll in today's amazing, gorgeous sunshine and blue skies. Of course I was glad to go. So, I had just these few photos, but they will have to do (I'm posting them because thought I'd put up a few "parting shots" in the next post or two before I go away for good):

I think my first photo ever on this blog featured this table in very early

morning light. Oh yeah--there it is up on my header.

This is later-in-the-afternoon light with a

much more cluttered table (it's not always cluttery!)

and more "stuff" on the wall.

I think I took a summer photo from this same angle

when the maple was in full green leaf.

Winter gives a much different look.

 O Tannenbaum!

This is my official Christmas tree.

The hutch in winter afternoon light.

Because everyone is dying to know what is attached to my fridge!

Postcards from friends and family.

Roman's picture.

A verse written on a card by Aimee

that she included in a letter she mailed to me.

Various magnets.

"Susywawoozy Woman"

is what my nephew and niece call me.

Or sometimes they call me "Sushi."

They made me the magnet.

It's Time to Move Along. . .

Well, it’s time to close up shop here. And I don’t really see myself ever blogging again, either. There are a zillion blogs out there. Mine is just putting more noise into the blogosphere, and I’m not inclined to want to do that anymore.

Thank you for being such sweet readers! I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting you through this blog, reading your comments, and visiting your own blogs. It's been a pleasure to "know" you, and when/if I have time, I'll pop in and say hi.

But it's time for me to really jump into the life that God has for me right now.

I don't want to merely pass through this stage. I don't want only to surrender and nod to God’s sovereignty, but I need to dive in, fully embrace each day and each thing as coming from the hand of God, and strive to glorify and honor Him—wholeheartedly and with joy—in all that I do.

When I kept my old High Desert Home blog, I was writing of things I’d been living, thinking about, writing about, speaking about in various groups and organizations, and sharing with both women and men in meetings in my home for years—decades, actually. My writings on that blog were simply a communication of the real life I’d been living for a long time. The posts were easy to write, and it seemed natural to keep a blog.

But then my life turned upside down and everything changed.

At the same time, nothing changed. I still affirm everything I have written on any of my blogs about home and family, creating and learning, relationships and domesticity. I know that no matter how many times I explain the point of my posts about home-life, people are going to misunderstand my meaning, but I can’t worry about that. I can only assert, again, that this is not about being domestic and “home-makey” for its own sake, but it’s about doing what the Bible says a wise woman does: She builds her house.

Home is the most potent force in a child’s life (in all of our lives), and the deep spiritual potential of creating “warm and cozy”—when done with the right vision—is vastly misunderstood and undervalued. Doing this is not an inclination or a hobby—it’s a spiritual calling. But I won’t belabor this point. I’ve done that elsewhere.

As I mentioned, I wrote on that High Desert Home blog about what I had been living for years and years. I had walked through the ups and downs of that life, the trials and challenges, and the heartaches and joys, so my ideas felt tested and somewhat stable. And, while I blogged, I continued to live that same kind of life at home, only now with kids who were grown but were coming home often and bringing their own children along with them.

But my circumstances have changed, and I am now on a path that requires whole-hearted attention and energy. Last summer when I was kicking back and taking things slow and easy, there was room in my life for putting up blog posts at this Summer Notebook blog, but I’ll admit that I never really felt fully engaged in it in spite of regular blog posts. Then summer ended, and I resumed classes at the university. I’ve been back in school for almost two years (and have accumulated so many credits, because of my four years of college back in the 1970s, that my advisor says she is in awe—haha!).

Now my focus is narrowing, and I need to throw of whatever is a distraction or a hindrance to what God is doing in my life. I am walking a new path, and I have no idea where I’m going or what I’ll actually end up doing, but I know that God does, and this is good enough for me! I am exploring uncharted territory, and I’m just beginning to discover a sense of adventure in this.

Plus, I don’t think I need to be writing about what God is doing and teaching me when I’m right in the middle of it. Now is time to settle down, quiet down, and learn from Him. If I am writing about these stories and lessons before I’ve really learned them entirely (though I’m not looking to ever write about them, actually), I disrupt the process. I lose the real, organic flow of the walk.

My one goal right now is not to figure out my life. It is to be faithful. To walk faithfully with God to the end of my days. To walk hand in hand with Him wherever He leads me. To trust. To live quietly. To do whatever little thing He gives me to do. To let Him make me what He wants me to be without trying to figure it out or help Him. I have no designs on doing any big thing or being noticed in my life. Just keep me faithful, dear Lord. Make me a servant. And may my life truly bring honor and glory to You.

P.S. If you have anything you're dying to ask me in the next day or so before I turn out the lights, go right ahead. I'll do my best to answer.