Mission Complete!

I finally completed the gargantuan task of copying all of my posts from my two older blogs into this one!  I have wanted to do this since I created this blog, but it took so much effort, I just hadn't gotten around to it.  Now I can finally get rid of the other two blogs.  If you are on my RSS Feed, that is the reason for the sudden deluge of new posts.  Sorry.  I, however, have enjoyed the trip down memory lane.  I can't believe I have been blogging (off and on) for two years now.  Where does the time go?!

Garden Dreams

Something must be wrong with me.  It is the middle of January, there is snow on the ground, we are in the middle of a huge home-renovation project (ie, finnishing two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a family room in our basement, not to mention painting the main-floor of the house), and I have a baby due in 6 weeks. Yet for the past month or so, I have not been able to stop dreaming up plans for my garden.  I keep trying to tell myself that I needed to be prepared to go simple in the garden this year.  Last year I added a paver patio, a fire-pit, an herb garden, planted 7 fruit trees, 50 strawberry plants and added about 30 feet of garden space for summer and winter squash to my already existing garden space.  I will have plenty to do with a new little one on my hands, trying to keep up with the work I created for myself last year, but it's never enough. There are projects that I wanted to get to last year that I wasn't able to, like:

building and planting a grape arbor over our sand box,

building a chicken coop

and getting some chickens to go in it,

and starting some back-yard beehives.

To top it all off I just finnished reading this book.

I don't know if you can see the subtitle, but this dangerous little tome is temptingly titled: The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!  I don't know if that title is tempting to anyone else, but to this frustrated would-be Laura Ingles Wilder, living on a quarter acre lot, it sounded like mana from heaven.  Much of the book was just a review of things I already know, and do, or have wanted to do, but I now have a few things I have added to my list like:

growing a hardy kiwi-vine along one open stretch of fence in the backyard,

trying to scrounge up some more space in my yard to grow oats and corn for the future chickens to feed on,

 

and tearing up most of our front garden and replacing existing plants and bushes with some of these:

alpine strawberries

tricolor ornamental peppers,

red currant bushes,

Nanking cherry bushes,

Juneberry trees,

and maybe some beach plum bushes.

That's not too much to try to accomplish in one summer with a newborn baby, is it?  Well, for now I can at least dream about it . . .

What's Wrong with this Picture?

When my oldest child was in the Public School System, I never really gave much thought to who decided what he was going to learn in each subject.  I guess I just assumed that there was a standard store of information that every schooled person had to learn before they were declared "educated".  In retrospect it is amazing how many things I never really thought about in my own and my children's education.

Since I began homeschooling one of the big questions I am constantly asked is "How do you make sure your children are learning everything they are supposed to be."  This question assumes my early outlook that there is a certain amount of information that has to be gathered in specifically measured increments, or else your child will be "behind".  If they fall behind, good luck ever catching them up again.  The longer I have been homeschooling the more I have come to realize that education is a life-long endeavor, and no grade or certificate can identify a truly educated person.  The highest goal of any "teacher" should be to teach their students to love to learn and how to teach themselves.  Once that is accomplished the path is paved for life-long learning and you will have gotten them as close to success as any "third person" can.  Remember the adage, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."  A great teacher makes that water look so good that their students naturally want to drink and never turn back.

Unfortunately that is not the case with our current education system.  For some reason, the prevailing philosophy is that we can make a student drink and we need to shove it down their throats and make sure they can spit the right information back up when it's asked for.  Learning isn't looked at as an exciting adventure, with different treasures to be found by each individual who determines to seek for them.  Instead it is something the teacher holds in her hands and rations out to each individual in equal proportions at the same time, whether they are ready for it, or are even interested in it or not.

Yesterday I came across this article that reflects how truly arbitrary and ridiculous educational "standards" are.  I had never really thought about it until last night, but it struck me how silly they are when I realized that a handful of "experts" in Texas (each with their own political, social, religious, and educational agendas mind you)  are deciding what every child in the country is going to have to "learn" each of the 13 years they spend in a Public School Classroom.  Even if they are "experts" (please define that for me), and even if they aren't swayed by personal agendas (which they most certainly are. Who isn't?), how could they possibly know what my individual child needs to learn, with his varied interests and abilities?  The answer is, they couldn't.  It's hard enough for a teacher of 25 students who spends 9 months with her class to figure that out, let alone for some removed group of people.  It is hard enough for me as a mother of only 4 who spends practically the entire day, every day of the year with them, to know that.  Luckily I realize I don't have to know.  I just have to help them acquire the tools they need and spark the fires in their minds and stand back and watch them go.

In the words of Plutarch, "The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."

If all of us interested in educating children would spend more time trying to kindle fires, than attempting to fill vessels, this world would be filled with many more truly educated people.  Heaven knows we could use them.

1010 Challenge

This week I realized I had not done as much reading on my 999 list as I would have liked so I decided to start The Scarlet Pimpernel and finnished it on New Years.  I can't believe I had never read it before.  I thoroughly enjoyed the read, even though it was very predictable.  I hadn't added up the number of books I read last year until today, and interestingly enough, I ended up reading the same number as I did in 2008; thirty three.  Even though I have yet to come close to the reading goal for these challenges, I have really enjoyed having some direction for my reading.  I still tend to read way more from the classics category and struggle with getting through books in the non-fiction categories, but at least these lists remind me to branch out a little more.  I sat down today to see if there was a 1010 challenge and was pleased to find one hosted here.   The thing I love about this challenge is that the only requirement is to pick 10 categories to read from in 2010.  The number of books you read from each category is entirely up to you.  No guilt!  That was right up my alley with a new baby and major house renovation on the horizon this year.  I think I will start with four books in each category to see if I can break that 33 barrier, and then go from there.  Wish me luck.  Here are my 2010 selections so far:


I. Spirituality 
   
   1. The Book of Mormon
   2. Each Ensign from cover to cover this year. 3 of 12 completed. (I need to get back to doing this.  2 years ago when I accomplished this it made such a difference in my life.) 
   3. The Old Testament
   4. Gospel Principles
   5. Faith Precedes the Miracle *


II. U.S. Government/History


  1. The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution

2. An Enemy Hath Done This

3. The Federalist Papers

4. Democracy in America

III. Education

   1. The One Minute Teacher: How to Teach Others to Teach Themselves

2. When Children Love to Learn: A Practical Application of Charlotte Mason's Philosophy for Today

3. Righteous Influence: What Every Leader Should Know About Drawing on the Powers of Heaven

   4. In My Father's House: The Years Before the Hiding Place
   5. Classical Writing Aesop and Homer


IV. Motherhood


   1.Created for Work: Practical Insights for Young Men
   2. Arming Your Children With the Gospel: Creating Opportunities for Spiritual Experiences
   3. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families
   4. Mothering with Spiritual Power: Book of Mormon Inspirations for Raising a Righteous Family


V. Book Club Books


   1. Mafia to Mormon: My Conversion Story
   2. Faith Precedes the Miracle *
   3. Mandy
   4. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
   5.
   6.
   7.
   8.
   9.
   10.


VI.  Family Read Alouds


   1. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

   2. Just David
   3. Mary Poppins
   4. 
   5.
   6.
   7.
   8.
   9.
   10.


VII. Classics


   1. The Keeper of the Bees
   2. Little Men
   3.
   4.


VIII. Health/Fitness


   1. The Diet Solution: Weight loss, Wellness, and the Word of Wisdom
   2.
   3.
   4. 


IX. Home & Garden


   1. One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Closets to Your Finances, the Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized for Good

   2. The Bacykyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!
   3. Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens
   4. All New Square Foot Gardening
   5. 


X. Other


   1.
   2.
   3.
   4.


Books I am currently reading.
Books I have completed.
* Books that overlap categories.