Socializing a Lost Art?

Ironic. On many levels. I'm going to write (on a form of social media) about how social media is taking away the art of social lives. And the other irony is that many would think I don't know much about socialization since my kids are...*gasp* homeschooled!

I can't tell you how many invitations to "parties" I've received on Facebook recently. What is a party but a place people go to socialize and have fun! And now we're relegating it to the internet? I know. We're all busy.  And it's so much easier to "socialize" in our jammies. After the kids are in bed. And there's no commitment. And. and. And. But it's not a party.

I know that people are trying to run their own little businesses while carrying on with their busy lives and Facebook (etc) offer a way to be able to do that. BUT! IT'S NOT A PARTY! A party has food and conversation and friends and you meet people. You have a reason to get dressed. And be with people.

Another issue with socializing via social media (yeah, I'm on Facebook, I've been on it almost since it was available-I had no idea what I was getting into at the time, I thought it was a place to make a stick family that represented my family and have an aquarium!) is the RUDENESS. I would no sooner walk into a room where people were not invited to a party (ha! a real one) or included in a gathering and announce how much fun I had ("Oh, you weren't invited?") than I'd go to a party in my underwear (again-a real one!)...

It's so faceless and nameless and I'm aware that you are just telling how great you feel, and that's awesome. But what about the person that feels like garbage. Because they weren't included. And they might have never known and been fine with it. Until they see it announced. Just what they missed.

I have no idea if I will be leaving facebook anytime soon (so often it's where I find out what is going on in the homeschool community, etc!) but I imagine a world where manners matter. And people go to real parties. 

A Dangerous Game

Wanna know what one of the most dangerous games is? Dangerous for your peace of mind, your confidence? Your happiness? Your joy?

Comparisons.

Seriously. And I know this and I still fall into the trap. 

I don't know which bothers me more, when I catch myself comparing myself to others...or when I hear people comparing themselves to me. 

 

Someone will always be skinnier. Have more money. Be stronger. Have a nicer house. Be more creative. Have smarter kids *gasp*...yes, I just said that! 

Also

 

 Can you imagine if you saw what happened on the way to church between that couple that looks so perfect? They might have had a screaming match! (I mean, I hope not, but it's possible!)  I once caught myself comparing another couple to my husband and myself and how he always had his arm around his wife and my husband just doesn't really do that too often. Guess what? They're divorced! And while my marriage is not perfect...it's strong and steady. And I love my marriage! I really truly do! And I was looking at that other couple with envy. *Sigh*

That person that has an awesome car? Or a gorgeous, huge house? Maybe they are so deep in debt to have that stuff that they are barely surviving the anxiety. Or they have to work so much that they don't enjoy the real stuff in life. Time off. Family. Friends.

We only see what people choose to show us most of the time. It's only your life that you know inside and out. The good, the bad and the UGLY! 

If you're always busy comparing yourself to others and focusing on that...how can you be you? How can you even know who "you" is!? Let go of images. Let go of being someone you aren't. Let go of perfect! Be you!

The Littlest

Wanna know what the littlest does during homeschool?

You're really glad when there's an extra little chalkboard during a spelling lesson.

You can do really fun things with a pointy finger thingy.

More pointy finger thingy fun.

Take a break to look at the Bass Pro Catalog! (In your monkey undies)

Empty washer to spin....

I want "YOU".

Still with the pointy finger thingy...

And you're reeeeeeally glad when there's somebody to play with you (brother finished his schoolwork in time to play!)

And some things that weren't pictured? throwing "frice" (rice-remember?) into the backside of our boxfan so that it flies out the other side....rawwwring like a dinosaur...doing a puzzle with numbers and saying letters...a homeschool day in the life of a homeschool family's 3 year old!

First Day!

Today we started school for the new school year-2013/2014! I'd like to say it's just because I follow the "old school" calendar for a school year (September through June) but more than that it was because we were finishing up some of last year's work-and some of it just plain didn't get finished. And it's OKAY. I used to really stress over that (you know, used to as in a month ago) but then I had several people remind me that in public school they don't always (or is it that they almost never) finish an entire book. And as I looked back on my school career I realized it was true! So, I have to be okay that there were a few unfinished lessons. We were all so done with those books!

Today, started a little rocky. I decided to take a nap yesterday. You know, "one last" nap? Only I slept too long and couldn't sleep last night. So, getting out of bed at my new self-imposed time (**gasp 7:00 am**) was not the easiest thing in the world! Then I tried to go for a run and darn it...even with my knee-brace...my knee hurt! So, I tried to come back in but the kids didn't hear my knocking so I ended up going for a walk instead. Then it started raining. Right on me! But I got to see this:

So see? If I had been let in the house and not walked in the rain I'd have missed the rainbow!

Then during first day picture taking...there was some cat poop in the yard (we don't have a cat by the way). One kid stepped in it. Yuck! (My fault! I told them where to stand.) But look at these pics?!

Pictures like that might be worth a little mess! I can hardly believe I have a 9th grader, a 7th grader, a 2nd grader and my "baby" is 3 1/2!!! (See where I got the subtitle for my Blog??)

Overall our day went pretty well despite a few poopy moments. I don't like our spelling curriculum. And of course, like any first day, there were a few awkward moments trying to figure out how a curriculum works or why I planned the work the way I did...Or when 3 kids needed my attention all at once. That's always rough. No matter where we are or what we're doing.

I can see quite a difference in Haley's work this year from last year-her writing is smoother and less painful. And her reading? OHMYGOSH. She can read. Completely! All the reading over the summer (I assigned reading from chapter books that I knew would challenge her a little bit at rest time) helped!

Nathan was so excited to get into his "frice". I try to find some things to keep him a little occupied and a favorite is the "frice" bucket. He buries little toys in it and tries to find them....he has been very anxious to get to his frice for weeks. But he had to wait til school! Unfortunately, when I find something that is super interesting to him, Haley tends to want to play it too!!!

Our classroom: (we are in need of some new chairs, a rug and a microscope! but for now, I'm just thankful to have a school room)

My class! :)

A New Year!

No, I really know it's not January yet. ;) But to me a new school year is almost better than a new actual year! With a new school year you get new pencils, folders, paper and notebooks!!! That's so much better!! (If you're a nerd)

I've been missing a lot this summer. We've been pretty busy this summer and we've traveled quite a bit (could be why we're broke, but hey!) and when I've been home it seems like we've had one technical difficulty after another-either the internet has been out or the laptop was having trouble...so I just took it as a time to take a break from blogging for a bit.

But as we start the new school year-my 10th! But who's counting? -I started thinking again about why I homeschool. It's so easy to get caught up in so many things. And which things will secure my child's future the best and you have to have the perfect curriculum or how will they ever get into the right college? If they can't write a perfect essay, what if their SAT scores fall short? OMGosh!!!! And what if you don't put them in Speech and Debate? They won't be able to argue effectively (actually, that's not a problem with my kids). And what if the boys miss a season of baseball? GASP! They might not play in the major leagues one day!!! **FAINT**

Do you see where I'm going with this? All this frantic "join everything" mentality gets in the blood!!! (And socialization is nowhere in my list of worries, since the first year I homeschooled it has not ever been a problem!) There are so many opportunities out there for homeschoolers and for everyone that you can allow yourself to be sucked into every one of them and it will drive you and your kids crazy.

The odds that my children will play major league anything? Probably somewhere around....oh, nil. (And it's not always for the best! Have you ever thought about how many of those people end up in BIG trouble?) But the odds that they will need to know how to be a good family member? Oh, probably around....1000%!!!

My main reason for homeschooling is this: God's word tells us that what the world considers wise, God considers foolish. And what God considers wise, the world mocks as foolishness.

1 Corinthians 3:18: Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God.

My first and foremost concern is that my children have wisdom that will have eternal significance. Am I doing a perfect job at this? Absolutely not. But, I have their best interests at heart and besides...I like having them with me. ;)

So, all of the perfect activities, perfect curriculum, socialization and all the education in the world...means nothing to God.

**disclaimer: I do value education and I literally obsess over which curriculum to buy and how to supplement it and when I realize I have forgotten something I panic! I want my children to be well educated and live this life to the fullest!!! 

Yellowstone!!!!!

Due to technical difficulties and never having time to figure it out, this post is what it is..the first two pictures are just a random thermal feature...

 

To recap, our adventures have included Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, a train ride in Durango, CO and some new friends! and now onto Yellowstone! Although, honestly, any of the before mentioned places could have been a full vacation on their own, Yellowstone was the original intention. We just saw so many opportunities on the way, so we took advantage of them.

But, Yellowstone! Another really neat thing I have not mentioned so far is that my older kids did (or rather are doing) a History curriculum called "America the Beautiful" and Yellowstone and Mesa Verde National Park were in it! The kids had already studied those places and had their interest piqued! How neat is that? (yeah, I'm a nerd, so what?)

I'm hoping this will help give an idea of what I'm referring to when I mention areas....

Lindsay had a list of 3 things she really wanted to see at Yellowstone so we made sure to include those. You'll see pictures of all 3 in this post!

While driving the final leg of our journey we got some news that was pretty devastating to me-we had all been planning on my grandparents moving here and spending lots of time with them. Their house here was READY for them. All the work had been done. But a little over a month ago my grandma had to be taken to the hospital for her heart (atrial fibrillation and some bad valves and some blockage)....the drs said there was no way she could travel the 900'ish miles from there to here without having open heart surgery. Ok, no problem! But through all of this (and thank God the surgery went well) my grandpa decided he just couldn't move....so that's what I found out. Yes, I know...she's okay and that's what counts. But man was I looking forward to some time with my grandparents and for my kids to get to know them better...so it hurt! And the timing was less than wonderful. Sometimes I think it was BETTER when there were no cell phones. You couldn't get that kind of bad news on vacation. Right? I cry about once a year. Seriously. Just not a crier (not always a good thing, to not be able to cry, ya know?)...I cried for HOURS. Couldn't stop! But was trying to not let my kids see because I didn't want to put a damper on their special time. We had all looked forward to this for MONTHS!

So, driving the last leg, barely able to see through my tears...I saw a MOOSE! (the only one we would see in fact!) I'm more excited about it now than I was then...and we got to our hotel and checked in (Shout out to the Kelly Inn in West Yellowstone, Montana! Great place to stay in my opinion!)...it was pretty late but it stays light for a long time in Montana in the summer-in case you wondered.

The next morning I just could not pull out of my funk/depression. It seriously felt like my medications weren't working (remember, I deal with depression). The family went to breakfast and I laid in bed. And cried. And then, texting with my best friend and my mom...I managed to, with her help, realize that I needed to pull out of this and do this thing. For my kids. And basically I had to fake it til I could make it. I'm so glad I did! I got in the shower and this is what I found on my bedside table when I got out:

Who can argue with that? So, off we went to the IMAX (Yellowstone was the feature of course! I thought it might be good to see that first and get an idea of what we were seeing/looking for). And then next door to the Wolf and Grizzly Discovery Center!!!!

This guy was the low man on the totem pole in his pack and for some reason he just seemed so downtrodden. :( We all felt a little sad for him....

We went back to the Center later in the day to see the "feeding" of the wolves. You don't actually see the feeding but they take the wolves out of the enclosure/habitat to feed them and while they're gone the "keepers" come in and enrich the habitat. This is when the wolves were coming back in to their habitat to explore. It was really interesting!

We got really lucky and the day we went was the day of the week that they put live fish in their little stream! We thought maybe the wolves wouldn't care that much but wow! They went to town! Caught them all and ate them!

We finished at the Discovery Center and off we went into the park (yay!)

The first day or two you are pretty impressed with bison...then you have seen enough. LOL

But we loved seeing the mamas and babies. Even bison are cute with their babies!

Annnnnd....OLD FAITHFUL! We waited for quite a while and it was COOOOLD!!! (Apparently Montana doesn't really consider June to be summer!) And the funny thing is, it wasn't nearly as impressive as so many other of the thermal features at the park!? I was a little disappointed because it's the most famous!

Poor Nathan caught something just in time for our trip. :( Poor little guy was pretty miserable...and his cough sounded like he was strangling! We were a little (ok, a lot!) nervous because he has a scary history with croup that gets bad really fast with little warning! He was such a trooper most of the time though...Big brother is covering him up with his own jacket here!

Just to the right of the middle of the picture you can see a "pop" of bubbling mud. It was pretty cool! Hard to capture it in the picture though. :( Below is the description.

 

Doesn't this look like such a waste-land? Yet in the background you can see the gorgeous evergreens!

We were all set to walk around in the Old Faithful Area and my WONDERFUL husband came up with the idea to rent one of these bike trailer/strollers! It was the BEST idea I think he's ever had!! These two would have been alternately running around scaring me to death and complaining about how tired they were (before again running around...how is that "tired" children have energy to run around making you crazy?) At any rate...this stroller saved us a lot of grief (=best $12 ever spent!!!!)

Is she not one of the cutest things you've ever seen!? She bought a journal in her souvenir shopping and she was writing about her experiences in it while we waited for a geyser to go off. :)

This was one of the things she had her heart set on seeing! The Morning Glory Pool. It was pretty neat. Sadly, all the "orangey-brown" color is from algae growing due to people throwing things into the spring and therefore blocking the hole at the bottom, so the water cools just enough to let algae grow. But, the colors were still gorgeous.

If you want to know why they have to put fences around these thermal features..people have jumped into them and DIED. We bought a book called "Death in Yellowstone" while we were there and it describes the stupidity that people exhibit! I can't believe that people are dumb enough to jump into BOILING water. And then they're surprised when they...die!

No words needed, huh? Just beautimous!

See the steam? That water was probably beyond frigid, yet there was a hot spring off to the side of it.

Elk!