Sunday

It was a busy day. Rising early after a late arrival home, I zoomed off with my two eldest children. Our piano teacher is the music director at my mom's church, and she had asked my children to come play a duet for the offertory portion of both services. The sanctuary was quiet when we first arrived, and they did a quick sound check. Liturgy, sermon, pass the peace...offertory.

They played beautifully.

I cried.

Why? Well, my first two children are very, very different from each other. They are only thirteen months apart, but they have had to work to find things in common. I loved hearing them practice this piece, even during the times when they were disagreeing about the tempo of the song. Through the request of this dear teacher, they were required to learn new methods of communication and compromise. I cried because their hard work resulted in music that was beautiful, and I cried because I was proud of the relationship between my children that resulted in such a creative blend of piano and keyboard, daughter and son, grace and zest.

We zoomed home again, and my son had all of four minutes to change into his Boy Scout uniform and hop in the van. It was time to leave for a week of camp with Dad and brother. Ever since we have returned from Oregon, though, Sophie the Wonder Dog gets nervous about people leaving. She assumes we are all abandoning her again, so she worries. This time she took matters into her own paws and just got in the van with the packs and sleeping bags. She was happy to get out, though, once she realized four of us would be staying home with her.

I then collapsed on the couch to think deep thoughts about decluttering (my job while the scouts are at camp) and proceeded to fall asleep for three hours. Last night and today are the calm before the storm; tomorrow we tackle the clutter and banish it, once again, from the kingdom. It is so much cooler (phew!) which will make the grunt work more pleasant.

I am finding my house without husband and older boys so quiet, so empty. I've never been away from any of these special men for a week! When I wake without my husband's voice announcing the arrival of my mug of coffee, I will thank God for a kind husband and stumble down the stairs to do my own java supply; when I haul the trash cans back up the hill tomorrow morning, I will thank God for my hard working sons who usually have this not-so-fun chore. When the radio is quiet, the laundry pile half empty, the leftovers enormous as I adjust my cooking amounts, I will remember the ones who are off in the mountains doing scoutish things like polar bear swims at 6:30 a.m., merit badge work, service projects, and team building work with a troop of squirrelly, smelly scout campers.

And, I will savor the time to look in the eyes of the ones here at home. I can guarantee that in the spaces of time between cleaning out this and that, throwing or storing more of the same, we will talk more than usual, I will listen a lot more than usual, they will have a chance to earn some good pocket change as they help me with my enormous cleaning projects, and we will be able to enjoy the treat of being a smaller unit. We'll be ever-so-ready to expand back to our usual size on Saturday afternoon, though. Have no fear.

Conference fun

The conference in Modesto was great fun. I worked at the Peace Hill Press table, answering questions about their products and about homeschooling in general. It was an encouragement to meet so many intelligent, thoughtful, and conscientious moms and dads.

My family came and joined in the fun for the afternoon on Friday. Some of them went to hear Susan Wise Bauer speak, and the two youngest got the rare treat of a children's program. Whatever else the children's program provided, the obstacle course was the big winner. Huge smiles and excited chatter greeted me when they returned.

My oldest son spent his time helping my friend Marcia, founder of Brimwood Press. It was fun to be answering questions at one table and to be able to see my own son helping out in the booth around the bend.

My favorite products from Brimwood Press are the timeline and What Every Child Needs to Know about Western Civilization. My struggle with timelines has been where to put them when we aren't working on them. I don't have the wall space for a long one, but any that come in book form don't give us the visual span of time that I find so helpful. Marcia's timeline is thirteen feet long, but it rolls up on dowels like a scroll; this makes it both visually effective and practical for storage. It's beautiful, comes with pages and pages of stickers, and the paper is very durable. Highly recommended.

What Every Child Needs to Know covers 5,000 years of history in fourteen lessons using the development of the calendar as the central story. Since we cover history chronologically, it has been great to take time out for fourteen lessons that quickly cover the span of history. We've gotten the big picture, and that helps as we go back to ancient times and begin our many year history scope and sequence. The hooks are in place in our minds, giving us a place to hang the detailed accounts we read and write about. Full disclosure: my husband wrote the last two lessons for What Every Child Needs to Know, so of course I love it.

For more Brimwood Press product information, look here.

And no conference is complete without time with friends.

Kate, Heather and I (left) enjoy life together locally as often as we can. I can always count on much laughter and very stimulating conversation with these dear ladies. Susan and I (right) manage to see each other almost annually at a conference here or a conference there. She provided plenty of the aforementioned laughter and conversation, along with excellent meals as compensation for my work at the vendor table. My friendship cup runneth over!

I'm not always refreshed when I return from a conference, but this year was a win-win of participation. Both CCHE's spring conference and this week-end's Modesto conference had great speakers and were run smoothly. It's a lot of hard work to put on a well-run conference, so thanks to all the folks who do such a great job.



Oh, yes, the vendors were excellent as well. I made good use of any free time I had, and I found everything on my list and a handful of extras. Math-U-See , Beautiful Feet Books, Miller Pads and Paper and BooksBloom (used book seller) were the productive stops on my quick spin through the hall. It's a good thing I am cleaning the joint out this week. Our bookshelves need to stretch to accommodate the new residents.

Summer Reading Challenge Update

Done

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Murder at Markham by Patricia Houck Sprinkle
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
When All the World Was Young by Barbara Holland
Romeo and Juliet
The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition by E. Christian Kopff

Remember, for the most part you can find the books you need in public libraries, in paperback editions in ordinary bookstores, and in used bookstores. Acquiring Greek and Latin does not cost a lot of money, but it does involve getting up from your seat in the cave and walking out into the sun. As Plato told us, that decision will involve effort and even some pain, because at first the intellectual sunlight is too bright for our minds. So do not expect encouragement from other people in the cave. Getting into the sun does not bring you money or position in life. It does bring you a quality of life you can't find elsewhere; a different type of life, a higher kind of life, under the bright and warm sun that sends its rays streaming to us from the Mediterranean.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Yes, done! It's going back on the shelf, but I anticipate a re-read when the time is right and when I can read in larger chunks.

Blue Shoes and Happiness, Alexander McCall Smith

I lost interest in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books awhile ago, but found this on the shelf by the library door. It was the perfect time for a gentle story, complete with appreciation for the "traditionally built woman." Loved it.

The Well of Lost Plots, Jasper Fforde

If you are unfamiliar with Fforde's Thursday Next books, I suggest you start withThe Eyre Affair and move through the series. Funny and creative.

In Progress

Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine by Dorothy Sayers.

Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education by David Hicks

On the Art of Writing by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.

A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason

Still to come:

Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis

The Iliad by Homer

Morning thoughts...

My urban view

I have been enjoying the quiet of the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Modesto, California since yesterday afternoon. I am always shocked at how much I can accomplish when I am alone. I can read (a lot) AND eat (when I want) AND iron my clothes AND walk AND solve the questions of the world with friends. I wouldn't trade this for the rather more demanding life I have at home, but every once in a while it is a lot of fun. Tonight I will be sharing a room with a woman who takes the idea of late night and pushes it into the wee hours of the morning, so I better catch a nap before the conference starts this afternoon. If you are staying here in the Doubletree Hotel, and you hear strange voices yelling out "Ewan McGregor" sometime between midnight and dawn, just know that we don't get out often and this is our idea of crazy fun, okay? And, no, we don't know why it is so funny either.

From my quieter moments of praying, reading, planning, thinking and productively staring out at the urban surroundings come these notes:

From The Book of Common Prayer

A Collect for the Renewal of Life

O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having done your will with cheerfulness during the day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

It's the cheerful part that always causes me to pause and ask for a measure of grace.

From One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"Actually, ever since she had found it in Aureliano Segundo's trunks, Fernanda had put on the moth-eaten queen's dress many times. Anyone who could have seen her in front of the mirror, in ecstasy over her own regal gestures, would have had reason to think she was mad. But she was not. She had simply turned the royal regalia into a device for her memory. The first time that she put it on she could not help a knot from forming in her heart and her eyes filling with tears because at that moment she smelled once more the odor of shoe polish on the boots of the officer who came to get her at her house to make her a queen, and her soul brightened with the nostalgia of her lost dreams."

I have commented before (here and here) about my struggles with Solitude; I was right that a block of quiet has allowed me to get into the rhythm of the writing. Fifty-four more pages to go.

From A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason:

"One of our presumptuous sins in this connection is that we venture to offer opinions to children (and to older persons) instead of ideas. We believe that an opinion expresses thought and therefore embodies an idea. Even if it did so once the very act of crystallization into opinion destroys any vitality it may have had;"

and

"All roads lead to Rome, and all I have said is meant to enforce the fact that much and varied humane reading, as well as human thought expressed in the forms of art, is, not a luxury, a tit-bit, to be given to children now and then, but their very bread of life, which they must have in abundant portions and at regular periods. This and more is implied in the phrase, 'The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.'"

I have been spending time thinking through our approach to next year's school plan, and I find myself returning to Charlotte Mason's original writings for some perspective on the middle school and high school years. If you are interested in Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education, I strongly recommend you read her writing, not someone else's interpretation of her writing. The interpretations are extremely helpful in the application of the ideas, and I have benefitted immensely from them, but I think you owe it to yourself to hammer through as much of the original as you can.

A tremendous resource for schedules and book lists is Ambleside Online; the yahoo groups associated with it provide an excellent forum for questions and files with sample schedules and forms. We're going to be studying from around 1800 up to World War I this year, so I will be using a lot of the books on the fifth and tenth year lists, adapting the schedule to work for my fifth, eighth, ninth and tenth graders. My second grader will study the same years, but I will need to put together some age-appropriate readings for him.

Back to planning and coffee. Happy Saturday!

Amen, Miss Jane!

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
~ Jane Austen

The next generation of weddings has begun

PRAYER FOR HOME

Grant them peace,
Most precious gift of all,
Keep the worried world
Far away and small.
When they return
May quiet fill their souls
Dearest Lord, keep them safe
Within its walls

May the stone
Be cool beneath their feet,
The canyon breezes
Circle soft and sweet.
When darkness falls
The stars and opal moon
Find them wrapped in each other,
Ever warm.

May it be a refuge for their love,
A harbor for their deepest prayer.
May they come to flourish in the grove,
Grow ever nearer to you there.

Many a burdened friend
In their company rises.
A heavy heart
Is soon released to fly.
May their table be blessed with laughter and with grace,
And by the comfort of kinship
Be surprised.

May the cold winds
Blow far from their front door.
May the winter rains
Never bring them harm.
May their hearth fires
Burn throughout the night.
Grant them sleep
Until morning's perfect light.

Fernando Ortega

Communion and prayer

Twenty-two years ago, I met this beautiful woman in the front yard of her parent's bed and breakfast inn. She was running stark naked through the yard, on her way to cool off in the wading pool. She was a happy toddler, overflowing with joy for all around her. Her uncle and I were just friends, and it would be two more years before she was a hesitant but adorable flower girl in our wedding.

This last Saturday, in a field overlooking the Sacramento Valley, and under a setting sun that had provided temperatures far over one hundred degrees, our dear niece and new nephew were married. The ceremony was beautiful, and her face glowed with characteristic joy. The wedding gown sparkled, the groom was ever-so-taken with his new bride, and the tears of joy rolled as freely as the sweat poured down our backs. After their vows were spoken and the unity candle lit, they kneeled in that field and took communion as this song by Fernando Ortega played. I continue to pray these words for them as they honeymoon, set up house and move forward in the days to come.

We love you, Christine and Dave!

Our hot and happy family, celebrating a beautiful occasion

More jolly preoccupations

Another thing I have been spending time reading is the manual to my new camera. Yes, I have joined the world of digital SLR cameras, having used my savings and my upcoming birthday and Christmas gift rights. I am thrilled and just a bit intimidated to have to do more than point and shoot. This morning I awoke from one of those dreadful, "bad guys are approaching and I can't run" kind of dreams, so there was no hope of falling back asleep. The heat was already rising with the sun, so I chose to grab my camera and head to the shade of the garden. I wasn't sorry to have the quiet, the cool or the company of a furry friend.







Favorite colors




These hollyhock seed pods remind me of my children, about to burst new life and magic upon an unsuspecting world. It can be hard to see the potential pent up inside, but it is there. I can hardly wait to see the seeds take root and blossom.




As the hillsides turn brown and the dirt road becomes a dust cloud, I love to focus on the green around me. Brown discourages me when it comes in large quantities, but a little bit of green reminds me that the dry heat of the summer won't last forever.


Sergeant Pumpkin Lewis makes sure I am never alone.

The Grammar Family at Home and Abroad

Seen at home:

Sign over Main Street announcing the upcoming local theater production:

Your A Good Man Charlie Brown

Seen abroad:

Cherry's For Sale
(right under a sign reading: Cherries)

Buss'es welcome

Kids menu

Jackies' Cafe

Lady's Room

Ladie's Room

His and Hers Haircuts

Seven-year-old's response:

"This world sure has a problem with apostrophes."

Back home again:

Child: "If we use stickers to correct signs, is it vandalism?"

Parent: "They've already done violence to the English language! They've already assaulted our senses! It would be an act of self-defense!"

Other Parent to Parent: "Relax, dear."

Other Parent to Child: "Yes, it's vandalism."

Sticklers, Unite!

(Posted with thanks to Grammar Dad, since Grammar Mom is the most challenged member of the Grammar Family.)

Preoccupation

Two things have preoccupied me over the last week, thus a lack of inspiring posts. They are:

1) The Heat.

I reserve the right to use my blog for complaining about the heat once each summer, and today is the day. It has been over one hundred degrees for...well, for forever, and the ten-day forecast doesn't show any cooling until next Wednesday (yes, ninety-nine degrees is cooling.) Next Thursday, when it should only be ninety-five degrees here (insert heavy sarcasm), I will be heading to Modesto, California where it promises to be one hundred-and-three degrees. Do not look for me on the streets of Modesto; I will be working for a friend in the vendor hall at the Valley Home Educators Convention, OR hiding in my air-conditioned hotel room, OR, should desperate times call for the proverbially desperate measures, you can find me napping in an ice machine. Yes, the heat is getting to me.

2) School planning.

I am doing a lot more planning for the upcoming year than I have for the last three put together. After two years of dancing around the edges of burn-out, I am enthusiastic about the new year. It's a good thing, as we are all feeling the need for a more structured plan. For now, my shopping cart at amazon.com is starting to creak with the weight of the books. The charts and forms I have loved in years past are keeping me company, and the skeleton for the 2006-2007 school year looks very promising. I'll post more details if anyone is interested.

So, I will continue pointing the fan at my desk, blending decaffeinated iced coffee drinks for pleasure and caffeinated ones for medicinal purposes, and I will, will, will work hard at not being a complete crank as the triple digits continue.

Summer Reading Challenge Update

Done

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Murder at Markham by Patricia Houck Sprinkle

This was nothing earth shaking, but it was a fun read. I will happily pick up another book by her when time allows.

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne

A great book; it feels like a P.G. Wodehouse mystery if such a thing existed. Funny and well-written.

When All the World Was Young by Barbara Holland

"Nothing at all was left of my previous life. My whole previous self. I cut off my trademark, lifelong braids and chopped myself a normal looking bob.

Years later I found the braids, still fastened at the ends with rotting rubber bands, in Grandmother's bureau drawer, and I was greatly taken aback. I was embarrassed. Least sentimental of women, she had saved my old hair, the hair I'd been wearing since I was five years old.....

The braids weren't tied with a ribbon or tucked into a quilted box, but they were there in the drawer where she'd put them. Could it be that I'd meant something more to her than she'd ever hinted at? Our relationship had always been practical. She asked after my bowels, made clothes for me, and cooked my dinner...I raked leaves in her yard and took out the trash and cleaned the roof gutters...I thought that was our contract. Was there something I'd missed? Have I blundered through life without ever noticing that anyone noticed, or believing I ever made anyone cry?

Anyway, shorn of my past, pockets empty, I set out to invent myself from scratch."

Much to make me chuckle, much to make me sniffle. The clarity with which Barbara Holland recollects her childhood and young adulthood is astonishing. She even describes the forgetting beautifully. This one will stay with me for a long time.

Romeo and Juliet

We listened to this on our trip home from Oregon. It was not, in anyway, a favorite for my Shakespeare students. "Mom, they were such idiots" was the initial response, and I am not sure we succeeded at bringing out any memorable imagery and dialog.

My seven-year-old's take on the main characters, having seen the play last Friday night: "Good grief, Mom. They kissed before they even knew each other's names!" He held out final judgement for the sword fight between Paris and Romeo. It lasted all of five seconds, so his judgement was complete. Not a favorite.

In Progress

Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine by Dorothy Sayers.

Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education by David Hicks

On the Art of Writing by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.

The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition by E. Christian Kopff

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Still to come:

Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis

The Iliad by Homer


Cancelled from the list:

Who Killed Homer: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath


Added to the list:

A Philosophy of Education by Charlotte Mason

Watching

Wit

The house is quiet tonight; it's just me, the dog, and the keyboard making noise. Romeo and Juliet was calling everyone else's name, but not mine. Home was where I needed to be.

I chose to watch Wit by myself, and I think that is why it hit so hard. Vivian Bearing was terribly alone through her illness; her one and only visitor comes at the end. Her esteemed mentor crawls up onto the bed, cradles Dr. Bearing in her arm, and reads her a children's story; I was overcome with weeping as she comforted her with inarticulate murmurings. This professor of 17th century poetry, a deeply intellectual woman and lover of the English language, needed wordless comfort and human kindness as she suffered. To come to the end of life, filled with regret and sorrow and fear, and to do it all ALONE, must be terrible. I wanted to leap into the screen and drive her to the hospital, call another friend to have them turn off the lights she was worried about having left on, and sit by her bedside as she decided whether or not she should be resuscitated when her heart inevitably stopped beating. It was the aloneness that did me in.

Our vacation could be summed up as a friendship binge of the best kind. Each turn in the road meant relationships made or strengthened, memories recorded, commitments deepened, and stories to be continued. It was such fun, but tonight it is good to be alone. The return home has been about doing and going, not about sitting and thinking. As I get older, I find I need the quiet more to balance out all the activity. Emma Thompson's gut-wrenching portrayal of Dr. Vivian Bearing reminded me, though, that being surrounded by people and relationships and the richness of human contact is a precious part of my life.

And so, the delicate dance between quiet time and time spent with family and friends and important strangers will continue. For me, it is a constant matter for prayer. I have come to honest introversion as a forty-something-er, so I bob and weave with waves of confusion about what is a true need for alone time and what isn't. I am confident, however, that the God who declared, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" cares even more about the answer to that question than I do, and I will rest in that. For now, I am ready to hear the crunch of the tires on the driveway so I can welcome home my family. It's not going to last forever, these busy child-rearing days. I don't want to waste a day.

Haystack Rock at sunset

For Mindy.

Just to let you know the rock is still there (even if the taco bar isn't!)

Photo courtesy of Staff Photographer son

What a nice surprise

A Circle of Quiet was nominated for Best Encourager in the Blogs of Beauty Awards. Thanks so much for the nomination; it's always an honor to be acknowledged.

You can visit A Gracious Home to see the list of nominees and to vote for the finalists.

Beach time

One more day of breathing the ocean air. Aaaaahhhhhh.

Reunited

It couldn't last forever; two relaxing days and nights alone were our allotted share of bliss. And we were ready to see our children; it seemed like a long time since we had heard their voices, hugged and kissed them and simply enjoyed life with them. We said good-bye to our quiet room with the sunset view and went winding down the coast highway.

We got to our rendezvous spot early. My task was a serious one: espresso location and acquisition, preferably from a small, non-franchised cafe; the Beach Dog Cafe did not disappoint. When I entered I felt as if I had arrived at The Local in Mitford, although I can't imagine that the Local serves espresso. The bright yellow walls, covered with photos of every imaginable dog breed, created a cheerful environment for plenty of elderly regulars and a handful of us out-of-towners asking for that new-fangled coffee drink; it was a cafe worth patronizing.

We awaited the arrival of the mega-van with our lattes in hand. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, and the time was crawling . Finally, from behind a hanging basket of purple and pink petunias, The Van appeared. Cries of "DADDY! MOMMY!" came from the back seats, and as the van rolled to a stop we were able to hug and kiss and talk to our hearts' content. It is said that it is always grey and cold on the Oregon coast in the summertime; this was, once again, revealed to be a plot to keep Californians back in the oven they call home. Blue sky, kept cool by the blowing wind, and the warm sand provided a perfect place for a picnic (a sandy, high-maintenance picnic, but happy none-the-less.)

After we said our good-byes to all, and thank-yous to the adopted aunt and uncle who paved the way for such a happy handful of days, we were on our way north to the next destination. We drove back through the town where we had spent our anniversary. Where would you go on the Oregon Coast if your last name was Wheeler? To Wheeler, of course. And where did we choose to stay?



We walked the streets feeling famous, and we had to capture the perfect photo opportunity after dinner:



We heard the best confession possible as we drove: "I didn't really miss you at all, Mommy. It was such fun!" Is it any wonder we could relax without our children when we knew that their time would be filled like this? Okay, so this was the oldest and her pals, but just imagine the early teen male version, the ten-year-old girl version, the seven-year-old boy version...and there you have it.

From where I sit right now, I can see the tip of Haystack Rock. Two children are learning Monopoly from Daddy, two are playing chess, one is reading. The sun is shining (again) and we still have another week of Oregon time ahead of us. Can you tell I am unaccustomed to so much vacation?