Ordinary Time

I'm feeling a bit emotionally exhausted today.  First, there is the constant background concern of the H.'s adoption.  While I don't spend my every waking moment fretting about it (I'm trying to break my fretting habit, really I am), it is one of those things that I'm aware of constantly being in the back of my head and it takes very little to bring it to the surface.  Then there is the whole recovery from this past week's tech and performance coupled with it all being M.'s last time performing with Thin Ice .  She did such a lovely job and J. and I are so proud of her.  But it's another sign that my children are growing up.  I sent J. to last night's show because I didn't want to sniff through it.  (B. was also terrific and we are equally proud of him, but he still has two more years with Thin Ice, so it wasn't quite the emotional toll to watch him.)  I was also watching four small P family children this past week because their mother is o...

So should I write about how our home study is still being held hostage by the state of Illinois, and without that approval we can't apply for immigration permission which is currently running 60 days, and it looks more and more as though we will miss the deadline for logging in our dossier and thus have to redo our home study because there will be new requirements?  And all of this because ONE woman in Illinois thinks large families are not good places for children to grow up.  I'm sure many of your think I'm making this up or am looking suspiciously like a conspiracy theorist, looking for sinister motive where there isn't any, but let me assure you I'm not.  If you live in Illinois, find an appropriately-sized family (in Illinois, that would be five children or less , it seems) who has adopted and ask them how long the state held their home study, or how many times it was sent back with extra questions, or how many safety forms about a lake that is a half mile ...

Here is where I pester you to come and see Thin Ice Theater's performance of four one act plays.  It's M.'s last show with them, so it will all be very bittersweet.  But, she does get the last bow.  So, on to the plays.  First, M. is in Trifles, a detective mystery: Then B. is in The Happy Journey by Thornton Wilder: M. is in Sorry, Wrong Number.  It, too, is a murder mystery of sorts, but staged as an old-time radio drama: And the evening ends with B. in Noel Coward's Hands Across the Sea: Do come to see the show if you can.  They are four very different plays with excellent actors (if I do say so myself) and very excellent costumes.  More information can be found on Thin Ice Theater's Facebook page or on the Thin Ice Theater website .  Hope to see you there!

I have mentioned that I don't 'do' plants... unless you count being able to kill them with remarkable facility... and that last year I gave the job of gardening over to B .  Well, he loves it.  And not only does he love it, he is very good at it.  The garden is getting a late start this year due to the month of May making a sadly realistic imitation of March, but there are some vegetables in, with more to come. Here is a picture from last weekend of B. with his little gardening helper, G.: 

Last night J. took me out to a very nice restaurant to celebrate my birthday.  (Don't you love Groupon?  It can make an expensive restaurant a more reasonable one.)  Anyway, it was a lovely dinner... fondue restaurants are just fun... and it was a chance to dress up.  I like to dress up.  It's fun and makes something feel more special.  And I think that children enjoy seeing their parents dressed up.  I can remember thinking it exciting to see my parents dressed up to go out.  It seemed like such a grown-up thing to do. But, evidently, not everyone feels the same way I do.  I find it just a little disheartening when other people don't play the dress-up game.  When we arrived at the restaurant last night, the party ahead of us waiting to be seated included a woman wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  I smothered the momentary impulse to ask her what she was thinking... but really, what was she thinking?  This is not the sort of...

(More of my recent musings on homeschooling... don't worry, I'll get it out of my system soon and be on to other things.) As a result of more than a few conversations over the past couple of months, I've come to the conclusion that there is a huge amount of fear within the homeschooling community.  I should amend that statement.  I see a huge amount of fear within the Christian homeschooling community.  I've been trying to figure out why this should be because I don't see the same level of fear within the more secular homeschooling groups I'm involved with.  Why should I see such a huge difference in underlying attitudes and behaviors between the two groups? Here's what I think (and remember I'm speaking in broad, general terms... there are always exceptions to every rule):  making a choice out of fear of one of the options never gives one enough basis for sustaining the decision.  Let me explain.  All parents want to do what is best for their chil...

Hi all... I'm back.  I'm ending a crazy weekend and starting a crazy week.  Yes, it's the last tech week of this school year (and M.'s last one ever -- sniff).  I'll pester you more about coming to the shows (which are on Thursday and Friday) later, but, today is for homeschooling.  You can't expect me to spend the weekend at a homeschooling conference and not have several things to say about it, can you? It was an alright conference.  None of the speakers that I heard were exceptional, and more than a couple of times I was hearing a speaker suggest things that I have already been doing.  I suppose that's what happens when you've been homeschooling for 13 years.  I did hear one session where I picked up some great ideas and where it gave me some new insight into how I do things.  I'll blog about that later, as I'll want to play show-and-tell, and currently I have nothing for the show part.  I have to spend time with a laminator first. ...