A Memorial Day We Won't Soon Forget

No parades or moving memorials for us this year. We opted to go out to the island Sunday and just relax for a nice, quiet day or two. Was it successful? Well let's see...

Aside from the thirty or so people that were renting our next door neighbor's house, and their constant cutting through our front yard rather than using the superhighway of boardwalks our neighbor just installed, and the boat load of drunks that almost chopped Jorge and Elle to bits while they were out on a sand bar, and the frightening squall of a storm that swept our boat away this morning, causing Jorge to pull a Johnny Weismuller and swim for it in the midst of gale force winds, I'd say, yeah, we had a pretty great weekend.

Said bad tenants raised a large tent on the beach in total disregard of sea turtle nesting season laws which prohibit such activities, and the new, clearly marked turtle nest just steps from their tent spikes; left cellophane wrappers from the hundreds of dollars of beach junk they had purchased for the weekend scattered around which can choke a poor turtle because it looks like a yummy jellyfish; and used the sand for an ashtray.

Do I sound like a cranky old lady? Wait! There's more:

As the leader of the clan traipsed through our yard yet again, hollering a hearty, "Hope you don't mind!" little old non-confrontational me summoned all my courage and hollered back in a most cheery way, "Actually, we'd really appreciate it if you would please use the boardwalks and go around!" To which my husband, who had been as disgusted with their rudeness to that point as I, and who is apparently even less confrontational than I, says, "Nah, it's okay! Don't worry about it! How you doin'? My name's Jorge!" The guy brought him a nice Cuban cigar on his next trip through. Hey, I'm the one whose behind he should be kissing. I'm the troll under the bridge. It is me you must appease, buddy. On his next trip he promised to smoke another one with Jorge when he returned from ferrying a few more guests to his soiree. I am pleased to say he never made good on that promise. Feel a little used, Jorge? Maybe next time I will just catch some rays au natural in my front yard, that should drive them away. Maybe I am not so much non-confrontational as passive-aggressive.

While I sprawled on my beach towel (clothed, don't worry), trying to ignore the savages trashing our beach, I was startled to hear Jorge yelling at a boatload of guys. Were they loudly discussing some trophy tarpon they had just caught? Did he know these guys? No. Jorge was vociferously informing them that they were supposed to be 100 yards offshore, not 100 feet after he and Elle were almost run down. They didn't believe Jorge and finally drove off telling him that he shouldn't be out there that far swimming with his kid anyway. Sarabelle ran to tell me that her dad used the "F" word. I'll bet.

Very early this morning I dreamed of a thunderstorm, until the strobe light flashes of lightning woke me. I ran out in the pitch black, gathered all the towels, and lowered the umbrella. Should I check the lines on the boat? If I was out there by myself I would have definitely done so, but since Jorge had taken the boat out earlier in the day without any other little hands to help with the lines, I didn't worry about it. He got up early too, the intensity of the storm was unnerving, not the twenty percent chance of rain they predicted the night before, and he couldn't sleep. With a cup of coffee and his cell phone handy, he went out to sit on the porch and prepared to commence barking orders at his crew back on the east coast. One minute the boat was there, one minute it was gone. By the time he ran out to the end of the dock, and ran back to return his cell phone to a drier location, and ran out again, the boat was two docks away and moving fast. He did a heroic leap into the water, swam furiously, caught the boat when it slowed for a millisecond as the motor dragged in the mud, scrambled up the side, and then was able to start the motor and get back to our dock. I had been sleeping in the girls' room while they had chosen to pig pile on the living room futon, and went out to see what he thought about this frightening weather. The empty dock immediately caught my eye. I believe I gasped. I looked around to alert Jorge. No Jorge. His cell phone was on the porch deck. The kettle was on and beginning to whistle. Checked the back room and the bathroom, then went into and checked the girls' room again. No Jorge. As I puzzled what to do, he came cruising up to the dock with his Tarzan tale of adventure.

I am looking forward to moving out to the island while we renovate the orange house. Life in Punta Gorda is boring in comparison.

I suspected as much.

The warranty on my laptop is still valid, so IBM agreed to replace the gravel-grinding hard drive with the understanding that I return the damaged drive or pay them for it. Being a major skeptic, I was afraid to return it for fear some data would remain and be passed on to the next owner of the sure-to-be-reconditioned drive. We've had strange names pop up from time to time on the reconditioned desktop my mother-in-law bought the kids. I had all kinds of bank and credit account information, a book in progress, and a photo portfolio, stuff I'd resigned myself to losing, but not stuff I want anyone else to have. IBM gives you 30 days to return the merchandise, so computer friends scrambled to find me the names of supposedly reputable data recovery companies that may be able to quickly extract my data. In the event that plan proves too expensive or time consuming, I will follow my mother-in-law's advice and just pay them for the thing. Then I may take a hammer to my old drive.

Today while I was trying to include the now usable laptop on our family network, I discovered an unfamiliar folder under My Network Places. Someone's family photo album, from 1998 to 2005, is still on my hard drive. Hopefully, since it was in a Shared Documents folder he was able to recover his photos.

So, uh, Juan, with your IBM laptop, and a family who enjoys waterfront Christmas dinners down in the Keys, I've got something you might like to see...

"Stop it or you'll go blind!"

There's usually some nugget of truth to those old wives' tales.

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine...

...has joined the twenty-first century and is hosting homeschool blogs for free. Being the bandwagon jumper that I am, I opted to sign on over there. To fulfill my implied contractual obligations, and to show my appreciation as well, here's a link to their site and an important announcement, "Buy their stuff!" Okay, I'm done now. Thank you for your attention. Look for another link, later, in my sidebar.

Check out all the homeschool blogs here at HomeschoolBlogger.

I will probably mostly reproduce posts from here, over there, though I did start out with a new post because I just couldn't stand looking at all that blank space.

Next Year: The Plan

Heeding the advice of Tracy Lee Simmons, next year marks a concerted effort to pare down studies and become more Latin-based as described in Climbing Parnassus. It’s pretty basic:

SARABELLE(8th GRADE)

Henle Latin I
Saxon Algebra 1/2

GRACIE(5th GRADE)

Latina Christiana II
Saxon 5/4

BOTH

Classical Writing – Aesop
Classical Writing – Homer with
Harvey’s Elementary Grammar and Composition and
Traditional Logic I

READING

Gilgamesh -- Ferry, David

DK Illustrated Family Bible -- Costecalde et al

Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times: Ancient Egypt -- Altman, Susan
Pyramid -- Macauley, David
Tales of Ancient Egypt -- Green, Roger Lancelyn
The Cat of Bubastes -- Henty, G.A.

Ancient Greece -- DK Eyewitness
Archimedes and the Door to Science -- Bendick, Joanne
A Wonder-Book for Boys and Girls -- Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Book of Greek Myths -- D'Aulaire, Ingri and Edgar
Famous Monuments Past and Present: Ancient Greece -- Behor, G.
Famous Men of Greece -- Poland and Haaren
Lysistrata -- Aristophanes/Dover Thrift
Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times: Ancient Greece -- Altman, Susan
Nine Greek Lives Vol.1 -- Plutarch/Scott-Kilvert, Ian
Tales of the Greek Heroes -- Green, Roger Lancelyn
Tanglewood Tales -- Hawthorne, Nathaniel
The Best Things in Life -- Kreeft, Peter
The Histories -- Herodotus/Marincola
The Iliad -- Homer/Fagles, Robert
The Librarian Who Measured the Earth -- Lasky, Cathryn
The Odyssey -- Homer/Fagles, Robert
The Oresteia: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides -- Aeschylus/Fagles, Robert
The Three Theban Plays (Oedipus and Antigone) -- Sophocles/Fagles, Robert
The Trial and Death of Socrates -- Plato/Dover Thrift
Till We Have Faces -- Lewis, C.S.


Most of the reading list has been compiled from Veritas Press’s 2, 3, and 7 (Omnibus) levels. The addition of Lysistrata is my idea, you probably won’t find it on any other children’s reading list, but what a fun way to teach my little pacifists to make love, not war. Looking at their Omnibus program, I am very tempted to order the Student Text w/Teacher CD-ROM, since I will be using most of their primary and many of their secondary books anyway. I would definitely be more comfortable with some sort of guide to lead me through many of these selections -- I’m sure you can guess which ones, right? If I can get them all in one place, instead of buying nearly a dozen Cliff Notes, it’s worth it to me. It would also be used the following year for studying the Romans as many of those books are on my list too. While Trinitarian thinking is not necessarily at the center of my thinking, I can appreciate having someone more knowledgeable in that department take me through the Bible as a historical and literary resource. Okay, I’ve justified it to myself now. That was easy.

We're not ready yet for the hardcore handful of Greek classics gone over with a fine tooth comb. Instead, the plan is to read broadly from well-written translations and historical fiction along with general background information. How these books will be used, whether read aloud or assigned to one child or the other or both will be figured out as we go through them.

Taking a cue from A Thomas Jefferson Education, we will be using the mentor approach where we all read and discuss the material and the didactic form of teaching with The Teaching Company’s DVD series of lectures on Ancient Greek Civilization. The girls will also keep a Commonplace Book to recap their daily lessons in.

Both girls will keep timelines, Sarabelle continuing hers from years past and Gracie just starting out. They may only be considered busywork, but they're great visuals.

A classical education, it's not all Greek to me.

Videmus

Netflix is great.

We've been tossing in movies geared to our studies these days as the weather begins to be too hot to do much outside that doesn't involve swimming or tons of ice, or, perhaps swimming in tons of ice. Recently viewed are The Red Badge of Courage and Gods and Generals. We'll follow up with Gettysburg once the replacement for the disk, which unfortunately split in half during transit, arrives. For pre-WWI era I ordered Nicholas and Alexandra. WWII has so many classic movies one hardly knows where to begin.

Another benefit is that I'm catching up on all the movies I wanted to see in the theaters but couldn't because I have: 1) a spouse who cannot sit idly for more than five minutes; 2) a movie maniac friend who used to hit the late shows with me after the kiddies were all tucked in bed, but now lives across state lines; 3) no one locally who enjoys anything other than explosion-laced, barrel-blazing, Bruce Willis fare.

This misanthropic introvert never need leave the comfortable confines of her couch.

Finally got to see Good Will Hunting (eh, predictable) and The Piano (great storytelling and beautiful moody camerawork.) How about Harvey Keitel? Never imagined Mr. White in a romantic lead, that's for sure. Yesterday I watched The English Patient. Another beautifully filmed piece of work. And Ralph Fiennes. 'Nuff said. In a conversation with another Fiennes fan, I confessed that even when he played the chillingly psychotic Nazi in Schindler's List, he was still hot. That's intensity. And his little brother Joseph's not so bad either. Oh, to catch them onstage with the Royal Shakespeare Company one day.

Figuring the girls would enjoy The English Patient, I let Sarabelle and Gracie watch it again later on. They were mesmerized, but willingly covered their eyes during the love scenes, no prompting from Mom necessary, "Ewwww! Is it over yet?" The movie gave them a taste of WWII's African front and also a preview of our upcoming ancient Greek studies with Herodotus's Histories figuring prominently in the story.

Please pass the popcorn.

Zoom

Elle is playing hookey today and tomorrow. Lice were discovered on one of her classmates yesterday; the offending party has been kept anonymous. Hopefully it is not a close friend. I am scratching my scalp for imagined crawly things right now, as I type. How 'bout you, feeling a little itchy yet? Are cooties another reason to homeschool? You betcha. I don't have the time to deal with head bugs, especially as preschool is winding down and our schedule is cranking up.

After errands and swimming lessons, we are having dinner tonight at a friend's house.

Tomorrow we are jumping in the car and heading over to the east coast for the weekend, where I will hopefully squeeze in a quick cut with my favorite hairdresser now that my self-inflicted bangs have grown out and he is less likely to scold me, "Darlin', just who has been doin' your hair?!" in his prissy little way, before joining another set of friends for a crab boil at their house. A stop at Whole Foods is in order, where I will pick up some of their fabulous Wild Rice and Cranberry Salad to take over. And maybe a Banana Slammer smoothie too.

Saturday the girls and I are attending my niece's baby shower at a very cool hotel, where we will shower her with our favorite gifts, books. The Complete Chronicles of Narnia, The Complete Tales & Poems of Winnie the Pooh, The Complete Adventures of Curious George, and Your Favorite Seuss: A Baker's Dozen by the One and Only Dr. Seuss still need to wrapped, but at least we've got them ready to go. My other niece, her sister, is also expecting and will probably end up getting the same collection in a few months. The only variation may be the addition of The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter if the sex of the child can be positively ascertained. Niece 1 is having a boy, and my husband's manly male opinion of Beatrix Potter is that, "She's kind of 'out there.'" It looks like sushi is a specialty of the house. That evening we will hit my parents' house for a cookout. They just returned from a cruise that took them from Fort Lauderdale, through the Panama Canal, and on up to San Francisco. Taken in small, infrequent doses, we will probably have a reasonable time.

Sunday morning we're going to hang out at our friend's beachfront Turkish restaurant so our kids can run around and play with theirs, and the adults have a chance to visit. And I can eat fried eggplant and baba ganoush and a shepherd salad topped with grilled chicken chunks. We must return home early Sunday evening, ...

Monday is Standardized Test Day and everybody needs to get a good night's sleep, though they certainly won't be lacking for a good meal. For three solid days they will be filling in hundreds of little answer bubbles with their trusty Number 2 pencils until they are instructed to STOP. CLOSE ANSWER BOOK.

Off to pick up the dry cleaning, wrapping paper, get Elle's hair trimmed, and pack. Pencils down, everybody.
See you next week.

You know you're a classical homeschooler when...

your kids name their Sims Aesculapius and Prometheus.

Juggling read-alouds here. Mysterious Island was a bust. After the first several chapters, the girls couldn't have cared less about the characters, and even I have to admit, Jules Verne gets a little too detailed in his descriptions of the landscape. We were spending way too much time trying to remember where everything was and how high the cliffs were on which side of which island, and we still had over seven hundred pages to go.

Continuing in the vein of Civil War era stories, we decided as a group, for that is how these decisions must be made now, to instead read the classic novel that inspired one of our favorite movies, Gone With the Wind. Whether it's age appropriate I do not know, but any doubts I may have had were immediately confirmed on the first page when Scarlett's tight fitting basque was described as showing off "breasts well matured for her sixteen years." The girls were not scandalized as much as grossed out and a chorus of "Ewww," was heard in stereo. And I have now officially hit that time of my life where I feel old, because this edition of the book is set with over one thousand pages of the teeny, tiniest type I've ever had to suffer. Mama needs a new pair of readin' glasses. But tomorrow is another day, so a new book has been selected, one that everybody is greatly enjoying so far, and so much so that additional chapters are continually requested. A Little Princess will be a very quick read.

I love Sara's idea that Emily and all dolls as well, have secret lives of their own, but always return to their places just before anyone enters the room. Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote another book, Rackety Packety House, that elaborated on that theme. A first edition of that book was given to me by an elderly spinster family friend when I was a very little girl. Miss Prichard also gave me a beautiful handmade flip doll that had been hers as a child. They are two of my most treasured possessions. I know she comes to life when I'm not looking.

The Epidemic

Isn't it amazing how just when you need some serious encouragement, you will open up a book and there it is, just the very words to set your mind at ease?

Even if it goes against their instincts, [parents] feel forced to buy into dog-eat-dog competitiveness lest they hurt their child's chances for success. As a result, kids have become commodities to be sold to the next school or the next enriching activity.

Since scaling back on our schoolwork, becoming more Latin-focused is how I prefer to think of it, my kids have been worried that they are not learning as much. "“We’'re really messed up, Mom,"” is how Sarabelle put it and even requested a return to school so as to get a real education. Our present schedule includes math, English, history, and Latin; no extraneous busy work. Next year when we start Classical Writing, we will also be including logic again. To them, they are not doing enough, and were happier when I was firing workbook after workbook at them, cramming at least five other separate courses into our day. We still read great literature aloud in the evenings, they still have swimming lessons and just finished their Presidential Fitness Award training, we still love to listen to classical music and watch and discuss historical programs on television. They just don’'t believe it counts.

The situation was compounded this weekend when our friends from the east coast came over with their daughter. The kids, who had attended the same Catholic school together years before, compared notes. A was busy studying for final exams! She is taking Social Studies and Science! She had definitions to memorize! “Mom, I’'m never going to get into college if we keep this up!”

There’'s a gremlin on the wing of my plane. I pulled the shade down and have been trying to remain calm. When I mention it to the other passengers, they tell me not to worry about it, ignore it; it'’s all in my imagination. But now my kids can see it too, and they are beginning to panic.

I began The Epidemic: The Rot of American Culture, Absentee and Permissive Parenting, and the Resultant Plague of Joyless, Selfish Children wondering where I'’ve gone wrong when my kids get a little sullen or disobedient and how to fix it. Oh, for a book that could help me master that one withering look of Nana’'s, the one she used from the second floor landing, looming over her poor flatland Cracker grandchildren like an Amazon, when she warned us to GET OFF THOSE STAIRS, NOW. One time, that'’s all she had to say it. We never climbed up and down those steps again unless it was to use the bathroom upstairs, and then only with a nervous questioning look in her direction.

I finished this book a little more secure in the knowledge that I'’m not so far off track. I know college isn'’t for everybody and that a real education is about enriching your soul as much as your mind, but I have had a hard time actually backing off and not pushing them in that direction. Yes, I still secretly prefer they go to Oxford or Yale, but I'’m working on it.

The author, child and family psychologist Dr. Robert Shaw, outlines items a child needs to reach his potential: "...a strong bonding experience and continuing intimate and loving communication, routines and a disciplined environment, and moral training." If any of these critical elements is missing, you are in for trouble. He also advocates severely limiting electronic media. Let’'s see, that’'s: Check, working on the loving communication part; check, although we could use a little more follow-through in the discipline department; check; and check. But the biggest factor, he believes, is downtime. This is what is seriously lacking in so many children’'s lives these days and interferes with their centeredness, the ability to discover who they are and what they really desire.

No parent wants her child sitting around all the time with nothing to do and no one to interact with, but eliminate the opportunity altogether, and your child will never get a chance to develop her own identity. An identity will be projected onto her by adult-driven activities and ideals...

----

Parents hate to admit that they are pressing a preconceived career path on their child. Yet they go from pumping Mozart into the womb to plopping infants in front of brain-exercising videos to taking toddlers to gymnastics classes and foreign language lessons. As these children progress through elementary school, they receive private tutoring in everything from soccer to reading to violin. In high school the roster of activities is carefully constructed to round out their resumes for college acceptance. Why? As parents say: "“I just want her to try everything and see what she likes,"” "“I want her to have everything I missed out on,"” and “"Everyone'’s doing it, and I don'’t want her to fall behind her peers."”

These parents think they are doing the best for their child, but in reality, the pressures of our toxic culture have clouded the issue. Parents have been made to feel that they are neglecting or depriving their children if they don'’t push them as far as they can go in every direction.

Ah hah. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Dr. Shaw explains that children are being alienated from themselves, whereas the Columbine gunmen, who he uses at the beginning of the book as a worst-case scenario, were alienated from themselves and society. So you may not end up with a school-shooter, but because the kids are receiving the message that the reward is more important than the achievement and lacking in moral training, you may possibly end up with another Enron executive down the line.

In an excerpt from a Harvard article entitled, "Time Out or Burn Out for the Next Generation?" Shaw pinpoints the true heart of the epidemic as a failure to implement a more relaxed and self-instituted life for their children:

Parents and students alike could profit from redefining success as fulfillment of the student's own aims, usually yet to be discovered. Burn-out is an inevitable result of trying to live up to alien goals.

This should blast that nasty gremlin off.

The photos below are for Miz Booshay and any other fans of the Amazing Race. Boy were we excited when we heard the teams had to fly to Miami for the last leg of the Amazing Race, and still more excited when the finish line ended up at our most favorite place, in our own backyard, Bonnet House.

Bonnet House, named for the bonnet lily that grows on the property, is a cloistered plantation house designed and built by artist Frederic Bartlett. These were from a series of photos I took as an architectural study, just in case we should ever have enough money to build our dream house.

The picturesque lagoon on the east side of the property where they finished the race, is an unusual freshwater source just steps from the Atlantic Ocean. This was a popular stop in the old days for ships to stop and take on potable water.

East side with lagoon in foreground 

Courtyard of Bonnet House 

Yippee!

In the midst of one of my computer crashes, I lost my portfolio of B&W, infrared, and digitally and handcolored photos. Anticipating disaster, I had been trying to burn them onto a disc before the burner itself failed and I had no other way to extract them.

But here they are! Even after I paid Computer Guy to wipe the drive so I could start from scratch! Hmmm. Explain that, Computer Guy.

Picasa found these hiding on my system. It's a wonderful thing.

Please note, these are not the finished photos, they look like one of the close-to-finished versions from old Photoshop files and still could use a little more editing. At least they are not just memories anymore.

The bottom picture shows my brothers-in-law racing their pedal cars and above that is a shot of my mother and grandmother dancing in the kitchen many long years ago. Both have been digitally colorized.

I'm doing my own little happy dance right now.

Jitterbugs 

Speedsters 

Where, oh where have my comments gone?

I know I'm getting them, Haloscan lets me know when someone leaves one, but why can't I see them right below my posts anymore?

Can you see them?

Hello, hello? Is this thing on?!

A Plug

Are you like me:

Keeping all your homeschool records in multiple Excel and Word documents, plus a day planner?

Worrying about how to put together a decent, organized transcript for highschool?

Well, give Homeschool Tracker a try. A free Basic download is available here. The full Plus program will keep everything in one very comprehensive database and allow you to create an array of extremely detailed reports, lesson plans, even individual assignments if you care to get that precise, for each of your students.

For now, I'm using it in a very general way to log all our resources used, calculate grades, and begin to establish a highschool transcript for Sarabelle.

Oh, and did I mention their fantastic customer service? Well, let me tell you. After placing a second order for the Plus version because of the hard drive failure and a vanished software CD, I was contacted by the company's rep (and owner, I think), wondering whether this second purchase might be a gift or an oversight. If I was purchasing it as a gift she offered a separate download code for the recipient. After I explained that, no, I meant to do that, and that it was for me, again, she refunded my money on the second purchase and only charged me for the replacement CD, which arrived three days later. Top notch.

Soldier of God

Last night, after tucking Elle into bed, she started getting a little silly and fresh with me. I reminded her as she finished up her prayers, that God made a rule commanding us to honor our mother and father.

She immediately snapped to horizontal attention and smartly saluted the ceiling.

La-di-da

Tonight, while I risk missing The Amazing Race's finale, I will be at a meeting learning the details and cost of signing my oldest daughter up for the local junior cotillion.

These kind of organizations strike me as comical, particularly after reading Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System. We are not looking to change our Category X status, or boost ourselves up some ridiculous food chain, attempting to be perceived as upper-middle class -- ironically a dead give-away that you are in fact a medium to high prole -- frankly, we don't care. But Sarabelle has expressed a strong desire to learn how to dance, ballroom style, and aside from the bounty of hip hop dance factories around here, which she assures me she most definitely does not want to attend, as she is one of the few girls in the county who does not want to grow up to be Britney or Jessica or appear on American Idol, there are no studios offering such lessons. That they teach manners too can't hurt. It's just that it's all so damn pretentious. And hilarious.

Oh, and listen to this: You can't just sign up. She was nominated for membership by some of our homeschool friends. And you must wear white gloves. Impressed?

Thanks

Today was a day that filled me with deep gratitude.

The weather was perfect, sunny, and breezy enough to keep the no-see-ums away. The Gulf water was emerald green and calm. The girls let me sleep late, but not so late that I missed the manatee poking around on the flats just offshore. After he swam off, Gracie and Elle then joined me on my deckchair at the end of our dock mesmerized by a large school of mullet weaving their way among the pilings in the super clear shallows of our bay. Small woodpeckers hammered away at the pines and giant pileated woodpeckers were seen cruising the skies. A large splash on the shoreline caught our attention and we were stunned to see an otter. His shiny body undulated a few times on the surface before he disappeared into the mangroves. Shrieks of delight brought out Dad and Sarabelle. The girls then giggled and whispered, jumping on and off the boat, colluding on their Mothers' Day surprise which had been hidden onboard overnight. An exquisite Phalaenopsis orchid was presented to me and now graces the tank of the toilet, where it will thrive in the damp, filtered-light condition of our island bathroom.

When we arrived at Dock 99 1/2 Saturday night, a note was tucked into our front door announcing a covered dish party at the neighbors'. We had decided to be spontaneous and rough it, figuring we had enough supplies at the house to feed ourselves for one whole day, but never figured on having to assemble any kind of presentable meal for company, so this afternoon, after I returned from a few hours playing at the beach with the girls and hiking through the bushes chasing a black snake, and after Jorge had some quiet time alone to finish his scaled drawings of the orange house for our architect, he took the girls out for a boat ride to Uncle Henry's Marina on Boca Grande where they have a gourmet convenience store.

It was during this lull that I found a great sense of peace. I had my book, relaxing in the hammock on the porch, having a wonderful dialogue in my head with the book's author, thinking of you moms I know virtually and in real life, contemplating how unlike most of the mothers in the book I'm reading we are, and sending out silent wishes that you all were having as wonderful a day as I was, the palms were chattering in the breeze, and then I was easily and happily distracted by a passing gopher tortoise who stopped by for a visit on his gastronomic journey across our yard. I watched him tear up patches of grass, mechanically devouring leaves nearly as long as his body. Not an easy thing to do when you can't use your arms. I was intrigued to see what attracted him and what he passed up in a yard luxuriant with new growth, brought on by unseasonably wet weather. We made eye contact. We understood each other. I found myself thanking God, Jorge, my lucky stars, for bringing me to this place and for giving me the family I have. Never have I felt so in the moment.

Jorge and the girls returned. He quickly transferred his purchases to our own bowls then popped them into the oven to heat up, perpetuating the illusion that we had been slaving over a hot stove all day.

We were really glad we made the effort. When we arrived, the older couple was alone, looking rather disheveled. They cheerfully invited us in and told us to make ourselves at home. Nobody else had arrived for their party. Neither of them even mentioned it. Uh, oh, I thought, maybe these are the first signs of Alzheimer's manifesting itself. After some pleasant conversation and several quizzical looks between Jorge and myself, Phyllis asked us to come out back and see the firepit they had been fixing up for the big party next weekend. Huh? "Next weekend, the 15th, didn't you get our invitation?" Uh, yeah, we thought the party was today. "Didn't you see the date? It says the 15th." Yeah, but we thought today was the 15th. Jorge tried to pin it on me, but hey, like I already you, without Outlook, I'm admittedly lost. Isn't he the one with a day/date function on his watch face? Wrong again! His good watch has been temporarily retired awaiting a new band, the cheapo substitute only has the two basic hands.

When Elle started acting up, I put some of The Epidemic's disciplinary techniques to the test and took her back to the house. She had a little time out on the couch until she regained control and then I called her out, with a warning to be quiet, as a junior raccoon rustled his way down the side of our coconut tree. We followed his progress as he waddled away through the mangroves along the waterline.

Back at the Punta Gorda house this evening, the kids presented me with more special items including artwork made from Q-tips and a certificate of appreciation in recognition of "Her Royal Momliness."

Thanks for a truly great day.

Overheard at the homeschool picnic...

"Hope it don't rain!"

And then, after realizing her error, "Pray it don't rain!"

(Gulp)

So Sunday is Mothers' Day. I thought it was this past Sunday, which was a concern for a few disoriented moments, not because I was worried or upset that everyone had apparently forgotten me, their poor, neglected mum, because I cannot stand those contrived Hallmark-generating holidays and prefer not to participate in the cards-flowers-dinner bit, but because I would be in big trouble with all those other mothers I'm related to that had gone unhonored.

These last few weeks have all been about catching up. Without Outlook to guide me, thanks to my recently deceased hard drive -- I've finally reached the final stage of mourning, acceptance -- and with only a barely legible list of activities scrawled on the back of an old envelope, I make my way through our daily doings. No more stacks of neatly folded school uniforms on Sunday evenings. Now I scramble to locate miscellaneous parts, usually just minutes before she is due to put them on. Matching socks? Forget it. I just bought some more.

There have been field trips, school performances, birthday parties, dental appointments, and homeschool functions, in addition to our usual schedule, all of which I have miraculously not missed, but it's been close.

Fortunately, I am not alone as other mothers have been saying similar things. It's either Spring Fever or Senior Slump. Either way, the end of the school year is right around the corner and I'll be glad for the break. Then comes figuring out how to include the littlest one, Elle, in our homeschooling.

Anyhow, back to Mothers' Day. My plans:

-- Sleep in.
-- Read a little more of Gods and Generals, a book I am thoroughly enjoying, the first book on the Civil War I've read that truly made me feel both sides of the conflict. Jeff Shaara did a remarkable job of making the heroes of both the North and South very believable and human. There were no easily defined sides. There was no winner. I had never given any thought to the difficult decision faced by career army officers prior to the war. I've always admired Lee and Jackson, but now I can add Hancock and Chamberlain to that list. Can't wait to finish and begin The Killer Angels.
-- Tear through my interlibrary loan, The Epidemic: The Rot of American Culture, Absentee and Permissive Parenting, and the Resultant Plague of Joyless, Selfish Children, to see what I'm doing right, or wrong. I think allowing children to share the parents' bed is one of his no-nos, and we are totally guilty of that, but he probably didn't have a child that never napped or stayed in bed one entire night for four solid years, so I may have to disagree with him on that, but otherwise, it sounds like he knows what he's talking about. If there's time, I'm going to have Jorge read this too, as this is a topic that freaks him out on a regular basis. He doesn't think we've even seen the tip of the iceberg yet, in fact he believes the iceberg hasn't even broken off the glacier. He worries about the society his daughters must survive in when the tidal wave of sociopaths hits.
-- Enjoy a day with no bickering
-- Phone all the mothers in our family and wish them a happy day
-- Surprise my mother with an email sent to her cruise ship as it floats around somewhere down near the Panama Canal

Now, if I can just get through the rest of the week...

SOS

Not a cry for help, but a little cheer. Both girls are having fun with Switched-on Schoolhouse Math 9 (Algebra). Sarabelle has raced through seven lessons in two days and Gracie is eagerly plugging away at the second lesson, although I'm not sure how far she will get since she is still only doing Saxon 5/4 and has not got all her multiplication facts down cold yet. But still, I'd rather see them playing math on the computer than some of the other stupid stuff they've come across online.

In all fairness, SOS is not really a bad program. They do recommend the student keep a notebook and answers must be typed in, so it's not just multiple choice with a 25% chance of guessing correctly. There are loads of animated mini tutorials to click on, which not only reinforce the plainly typed, and a little wordy if you ask me, instruction, but entertain kids who can't resist the urge to "Click Here." There was a little bit about "God is the creator of math" at the very beginning, it is produced by Alpha Omega which is a Christian publisher, but I haven't heard Sarabelle complain about any more examples. That was the number one reason we switched from Abeka to Saxon to begin with. ("Mom, does the number two always have to be about Noah?!") I'm curious to see the science game, uh, I mean, lessons.

We'll keep on with our Saxon. This is just for extracurricular fun.

My ploy is working.

May

National Barbeque Month ▪ National Bike Month ▪ National Moving Month
Get Caught Reading Month ▪ National Mental Heath Month
National Physical Fitness and Sports Month

1 -- May Day
Lei Day (Hawaii)
Orthodox Easter Sunday
Mother Goose Day
National Family Week
National Pet Week
Great Britain Formed, 1707

2 -- National Historic Preservation Week
Leonardo Da Vinci dies, 1519
King James Bible Published, 1611

3 -- National Teacher Day

4 -- Christopher Columbus discovers Jamaica, 1494

5 -- National Day of Prayer
Ascension Day
Cinco de Mayo
Space Day

6 -- Hindenburg disaster, Lakehurst, NJ, 1937
No Homework Day
Robert E. Peary born, 1856

7 -- Kentucky Derby
National Babysitters Day
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony premiere, Vienna, Austria, 1824
Johannes Brahms born, 1833
Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky born, 1840
Robert Browning born, 1812

8 -- Mother’s Day
Harry S. Truman born, 1884
V-E Day, 1945

9 -- John Brown born, 1800
J.M. Barrie born, 1860
Benny Goodman born, 1909
William Pene du Bois born, 1916

10 –- Jefferson Davis captured, 1865
Golden Spike driven, 1869

11 -- Martha Graham born, 1894

12 -- Limerick Day, celebrates birth of Edward Lear, 1812
Florence Nightingale born, 1820

13 -– Friday the Thirteenth

14 -- Jamestown, Virginia founded, 1607
Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit born, 1686
Smallpox vaccine discovered, 1796
Lewis and Clark expedition set out, 1804
“The Stars and Strips Forever” first performed, 1897
Skylab launched, 1973

15 -- National Etiquette Week
National Police Week
Pentecost
Frank L. Baum born, 1856

16 -- Biographers Day
Margaret Rey born, 1906

17 -- Brown v Board of Education decided, 1954
New York Stock Exchange established, 1792
Sue, most complete Tyrannosaurus rex, exhibited, 2000

18 -- International Museum Day
Pope John Paul II born, 1920
Mount Saint Helens eruption, 1980

19 -- Malcolm X born, 1925

20 – Dolly Madison born, 1768
International weights and measures treaty signed, 1875
First solo trans-Atlantic flight by Lindbergh, 1927

21 - Armed Forces Day
American Red Cross founded, 1881

22 - Arnold Lobel born, 1933
“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” premiere, 1967

23 - Carolus Linnaeus born, 1707
Scott O’Dell born, 1898
Margaret Wise Brown born, 1910

24 - First US telegraph line opened, 1844
National Geographic Bee final

25 - Poetry Day
Constitutional Convention opened, 1787
Star Wars released, 1977

26 - Montana Territory created, 1864
Czar Nicholas II crowned, 1896

27 - Isadora Duncan born, 1878
Golden Gate Bridge opened, 1937

28 - International Jazz Day
Sierra Club founded, 1892
Jim Thorpe born, 1888
Ian Fleming born, 1908

29 - Constantinople fell to the Turks, 1453
Patrick Henry born, 1736
John Fitzgerald Kennedy born, 1917
Mount Everest summit reached by Sir Edmund Hillary, 1953

30 - Memorial Day
Lincoln Memorial dedicated, 1922

31 - Copyright law passed, 1790
Walt Whitman born, 1819


You must wake and call me early, call me early,
mother dear;
Tomorrow ‘ill be the happiest time of all the glad
New Year;
Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest,
merriest day;
For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to
be Queen o’ the May.
-- Lord Alfred Tennyson (The May Queen)

May the Force be with you!
-- George W. Lucas, Jr. (Star Wars screenplay)

He [President Abraham Lincoln] has a face like a hoosier Michael Angelo, so awful ugly it becomes beautiful, with its strange mouth, its deep-cut, criss-cross lines, and its doughnut complexion.
-- Walt Whitman

Do you believe in fairies? …If you believe, clap your hands!
-- Sir James Matthew Barrie (Peter Pan)

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough.
--Edward Lear (Nonsense Songs)

May, with alle thy floures and thy grene,
Welcome be thou, faire, fresshe May.
-- Geoffrey Chaucer (Canterbury Tales. The Knight’s Tale)