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Last week I ran across a post about a mom’s old flute that she played in high school and early college. She was saving it for her daughters to play, and she decided to photograph the memory. I felt like I could have written the post… minus the truly breath-taking photographs. And the band director parent.

But wow, did it send me back through some memories…

all the different hats I tried on…

Elements by Catherine Designs

the shoes I’ve tried to fill…

Elements by Catherine Designs

I wanted to play at Carnegie Hall, to be a doctor, to do public relations for Compassion International, to live in Africa.

The most recent, and maybe the most ridiculous, is to write a book. I’m not sure what kind of book…

Do we ever get to a point where it’s too late to think about what we want to be when we grow up? Is it ok to think this way?

This week I also found a post by a person who is doing something that, on the surface, seems deeply meaningful and fulfilling. She’s a professional photographer, volunteering her time to take photos for families of babies who are born to heaven.

As I read her heart, though, I feel the weight of unspeakable grief. She sheds tears… This is a painful service.

Credits

I find myself turning imaginary crowning caps of achievement upside-down, wishing somehow they would hold a share of the grief and carry it away… knowing I’m not able to do that.

Credits

Some days I wonder if I’m cut out for being a stay at home mom. I can’t shake the early habits of dreaming, of wanting to do something bigger.

The truth is, though… I might not be dreaming big enough.

This morning, it’s my shoes that are flipping upside-down. Laces to the floor, I feel inadequate to join an epic force of kneelers.

It wasn’t long ago that laces were pressed to carpets and wood and tile for me. The dramatic effect is that my husband and I now have the task of teaching four little dreamers that sometimes glory is in the upside-down and backwards.

I wish I could bring fame and glory to the people who prayed for me… my thank you.

Barring that…

would new shoelaces do?

Hoping, at least, that you have a glorious Wednesday.

My new Pioneer Woman cookbook has arrived! I hope to cook something out of it this week. I’m excited that she uses ingredients that are easily accessible in the Midwest. And, of course, I love her food photographs.

In the meantime, I made Stovetop Spinach and Artichoke Dip from my Rachael Ray Get Togethers book. To borrow from Rachael’s vocabulary, it was yum-o!

Moving along, then.

Chopping onion, red bell pepper, fresh sage, and garlic:

When I chop onions, I put a candle under my face to prevent tears. I don’t remember where I picked that up (probably Mom), but I love tips like that. Pass ’em along!

I also love it when my kids keep me company in the kitchen.

Gathering all the other ingredients: frozen spinach, artichoke hearts, Italian blend cheeses, heavy cream, white wine, and chicken broth.

Sauteéing the onion, sage, and garlic in a little olive oil and butter:

A photography aside: As the light grew dim in the kitchen, the flash kicked in more, creating a reflection on the pan, as in the butter photo above. Remember this goofy post from a while back? For the following photos, I used the same trick, holding a paper towel about two inches in front of the on-camera flash to diffuse the light.

Paper towel in hand, I added red peppers:

Stirring in flour, adding wine, thickening with broth:

Whisking in the heavy cream:

Melting the cheese and warming the spinach and artichokes:

The dip is ready to be added to a scooped-out bread bowl or loaf!

Doesn’t this look easy? The recipe can be found here.

It’s fun watching young kids figure out how to use bread as a dipper. They loved it! It’s really a perfect toddler food. Between the six of us, we polished off the dip in short time.

Next time I make this recipe, I might double the sauce. It was a chunky dip, which probably is more healthful anyway.

If you give this a try – or if you have another spinach artichoke dip recipe that you like – please let me know! Wish you could have been here to eat it with us!

Each morning, I hand each of my kids a clipboard with a list attached to it. This list, folks, is a pipe-dream, a wild hope that they can manage to get through all of their assignments before 4:00. It rarely happens. But, after seven years of homeschooling, I still hope. And, after most-of-their-lives of homeschooling, they still react with shock and dismay to The List.

Our days start quietly. Each child operates according to his or her own rhythm. My daughter (The Ballerina) gets up, showers, and cleans her room before we even see her emerge for breakfast. The two younger ones sleep in, and The Professor drags himself out of bed, asks for a stack of books and a cup of tea, and starts reading immediately. Sort of. Is he reading, or sleeping?

A dirty little secret: Sometimes we call something “school” when it’s actually just parenting. Like teaching The Ballerina to be a lady.

Or teaching the boys to be gentlemen.

Or not.

This was not on The List.

Dog-pile!

Obviously, this party needs to be broken up. I send one of them out to do his chore.

I did NOT send three of them out! I call them back in and get them back on task.

One child is missing. I make a search.

I help him down, send him inside, and go check on the garden.

When I come back in, THIS is what I find inside.

Sack-race wasn’t on The List, either.

After a long lecture about the importance of The List, they are all back on track.

When I am asked what a typical homeschool day looks like, I’m stumped. I’ve never had one. We work hard; we play hard; we get distracted; we pick up and move on. Every day has surprises, mini-disasters, delights, and quiet hours that actually go as planned. The kids are learning everything very well, and we’re loving (almost) every minute of it.

I should probably note that these are scenes from several schooling days, not just one. They do represent a typical day at our house, for sure. I spend a lot of time just keeping the kids on track, or making the quick judgement-call that hand-feeding chickens and climbing orange trees and having sack-races is sometimes more valuable than whatever I put on The List. I try to put on my you’re-busted-but-I-still-think-it’s-funny face, and pull out my camera. We do study–hard–a lot, but I think these pictures are lots more fun than a whole blog full of photos of my kids reading and writing, don’t you?

Happy Thursday, Everyone! Spirits are high in Central Kansas this week. Spring’s drizzling rains finally gave way to its cheery sunshine and everyone seems to walk around with a “spring” in his step. This week (and last) I have been living with my parents so that I could finish out state testing at the elementary school where I work. This Friday, I will move to our new house, which my husband has been in charge of in my absence. It’s a good thing too, since I’m pretty sure he’s living on frozen burritos and months-old pretzels!

These two weeks have been filled with delightful quality time with my folks. Last week, I posted about my seedling-start to this year’s garden. I am happy to announce that a few “babies” came up just for you all, just two days ago! We have seven cilantro plants up, as well as one over-achieving and lonely tomato. (The tomatoes will start coming up now that the sun’s out. They just about won’t germinate when the soil’s not warm.)

I could hardly wait to brag to you all about the other project that I undertook this week! Under the very careful supervision of my unendingly patient dad, I have (eh-HEM) taken on… CARPENTRY! Nothing major, just how to cut a board using an electric saw (yikes!) and then how to put it back together again at a 90 degree angle.

I have successfully learned how to make a simple joint, using screws, a dove-tail joint (which I hugely regret forgetting on my kitchen table this weekend, so I have no picture for you), and a miter-joint, which is a complicated joint, made easy with the use of the miter box.

The joint below is a miter joint, and the yellow box with the saw is the miter box.

See?!

Miter box:

You may wonder why carpentry, but next year, I’d really like to build a cold-frame and try getting a head-start on some long-season veggies, like artichokes, peppers, and herbs. Cold frames are also life-savers when it’s time to start hardening-off your seedlings. (Hardening-off is when you leave the plants outside a little bit each day, until they get used to the outside temperatures. It needs to be well above freezing before you even start this process.

Thank you, everyone, for joining me in my joy this week. I hope you all get a sweet taste of Spring this week and I hope it affects you, as it did me, and makes the whole world seem just wonderful! Until next Thursday…

The other day I was busy getting ready for a trip into town, and the kids were occupying themselves nicely and being quiet.

They were being very, very quiet.

It was one of those “I know something’s going on, but I just want a moment of peace” times.

My younger daughter has never had her hair cut. I think she’s simply gorgeous, and I was beginning to develop sentimental attachments to her uncut hair. Similar to Samson and his strength, my daughter would be uncommonly beautiful, all because those locks of blonde were untouched.

In other misguided assumptions, I used to be baffled by stories about kids who drew on sofas with permanent marker. How could this happen under proper supervision? What were their negligent mothers doing?!

Don’t ask why we have washable slipcovers now. You don’t wanna know.

Self-inflicted haircuts fall into the same category: Things that Happen to Other Mothers.

If your kids have never done anything like this – I don’t wanna know!

I think I can pick my little daughter’s hair out of the mess. I salvaged a few locks for the scrapbook. They’re messier than I would have liked for a “baby’s first haircut” page, but that’s part of the story.

(Photography note: I’ve still been shooting mostly in aperture priority mode. In the picture above, though, the camera wasn’t getting the exposure right – underexposed without flash, overexposed with it. I’m happy that I remembered which buttons and dials to adjust to get the exposure I wanted. It reminds me: I need to review the manual and practice the things that are hard for me so I’m ready when I need them!)

The older two kids got in on the hair cutting fun, too.

Did I mention we had pictures scheduled the next day? Our first non-studio photo shoot? It’s the one I mentioned here, which kept getting postponed. We had it done Monday at the kind lady’s elegant home. Par for the course, my shy eldest daughter wanted to crawl into a corner, and the baby spit up on the lovely sofa… twice. I told her she was very brave to offer a photo shoot with so many small children.

I had nightmares that night about awkward social situations.

At least the kids didn’t go after their baby brother with the scissors. He doesn’t have a lot of hair to spare yet.

I was most relieved that my daughter left the little waves next to her cheeks. I will protect that hint of curl from the scissors as long as I can.

Things often do not go as romantically as planned. We disappoint ourselves… we disappoint each other… nature disappoints us. Precious things get ruined. Even God fails to comply with our expectations.

In all this, I want to drill into my daughter’s head that she always will be uncommonly beautiful to me, whether she has a head full of hair, or if every last inch of it is gone. No matter what.

I hope it will make it that much easier for her to believe when Someone Else tells her the same thing.

While I’m waiting for the new recipe book to arrive, I decided I have to do something to make up for the recent pizza disaster.

If you fall off a horse, get right back on again, right?

Berries are always a good place for me to start. Berries are pretty and inspiring.

Today I tried Rachael Ray’s berry compote recipe. I used it to top my lemon pancakes. I’ll post the pancake recipe another day. The compote recipe can be found at the bottom of this page.

My daughters helped me mix in the water, lemon juice, and sugar:

Dissolving the sugar:

Adding berries… The flash reflecting off the pan gave me trouble as the light dimmed in the kitchen. I’ll rig a fix for that in a future post.

I missed slicing a few strawberries… oops.

Measuring the honey:

We removed the berries and thickened the sauce with honey:

Pouring the sauce over the berries:

And here’s the finished compote, ready for lemon pancakes!

The progress report on my goal to discover enjoyment in cooking? You know, I really enjoyed making this. I think I’ve been trying to cook all this time without my best kitchen appliance – my camera!

I’ll be back soon with the lemon pancake pictures.

I have just ordered a much-anticipated cookbook by Pioneer Woman, who maintains a blog from her cattle ranch in Oklahoma. You can visit her heart-warming site here.

PW’s cookbook will join the ranks of several other hopeful cookbooks lining my shelf. I crack them open about once a month, but that is about to change.

Because blogging actually did motivate me to learn a few new things about my camera, I’ve decided to use it as a weapon against another of my nemeses. For the foreseeable future, I hope to conquer one recipe per… well, I don’t know how often. We’ll just see how it goes, and I’ll post the progress here.

Julie and Julia this will not be. Whatever resemblance any of these authors may bear to Julia Child (or Meryl Streep), I bear no resemblance whatsoever to anyone who can cook, let alone anyone who can successfully follow a French recipe.

To illustrate, I offer this humbling proof: When my husband and I were first married and living in our spidery bungalow-in-an-alley, I called Mom frequently to ask for recipe advice. The low point, apparently, was when I attempted biscuits.

I called to check whether I was supposed to cut them into circles before or after baking the dough.

It was a hand-scrawled recipe. It failed to outline this step.

Mom laughed.

The biscuit episode was a while back, and I have served up some pretty mean buttermilk biscuits and gravy since that time. Even now, though, cooking calamities happen more often than I’d like to admit.

Here’s further evidence, from just last week:

Yes, that was a store-bought frozen pizza. No, I didn’t just do that for the blog.

The situation must be addressed.

The truth is that in spite of Mom’s efforts and encouragement – and my better desires – I was born without a knack for certain domestic arts. My sisters, who grew up in the same household, feed their families very capably. I am thankful to have married someone who truly likes fresh fruits and veggies (read: uncooked) and whole-grain crackers with cheese.

And the occasional deep-dish pizza, of course.

“Joy of Cooking” is baffling to me, in the same way that “Joy of Diagramming Sentences” or “Joy of Changing Sixteen Diapers a Day” might be baffling to most normal people. I realize that it is completely abnormal for a wife and stay-at-home mom not to love cooking.

My goal, then, is to discover the joy in culinary endeavors that has eluded me for so long.

I asked Annie if this new venture sounded like a recipe for disaster.

She thinks I’m cooking up trouble. 🙂

I’ll be back very soon. I can’t leave this embarrassing confession “out there” with nothing to counter it!

I opened the door to my daughter’s room Friday morning, camera in hand, to tell her that she needed to help me get some pictures for my blog, and this is what I saw, just inside her door:

We’re not taking dowry offers yet, so don’t even ask.

Anyway, my idea was to use the blog to answer the question that I so often am asked,
“What do you use for homeschool books and materials?”
I told the kids to gather up their main schoolbooks, and anything else they’d like to show you all, and then we’d take some pictures. So here we go…

My sixth-grader spent the first half of this year studying ancient and classical history, using Dorothy Mills’ Book of the Ancient World, then Story of the Greeks (Guerber), and Famous Men of Rome. He’s now doing a whirlwind review of the rest of world history, which will end with A Little History of the World, by E.H. Gombrich.

For literature, he is reading through Bulfinch’s Mythology, and The Book of Virtues. Earlier this year, we studied and then watched Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. He has also read, on his own, great reads such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy, GA Henty books, and, right now, Hitler, by Albert Marrin.

He’s just begun to use the Life of Fred series for math, and it has turned my math-hater into a math-lover. For English, we use Rod and Staff’s series, grade 5, and Spelling Wisdom, by Sonya Shafer.

Our Latin program is new, put out by Memoria Press, called First Form Latin. We are learning together; we each have our own workbooks, and I take the test every Friday, just like he does.

In science this year, he is doing a bunch of sustainability projects. The program is through the homeschool company WinterPromise. It’s been really great, but it was written for an older child, or for one who is a lot more interested in science than my oldest one is, so we’ve had to monitor and adjust a lot. There have been enough rewarding experiences that it’s been worth it.

This Friday, he baked an apple in his newly-made solar oven. Here, he checks the temperatures of two different focal points:

My daughter is studying Greece and Rome this year, using the same books that her brother used last semester, along with Veritas Press’s history cards. Memoria Press puts out workbooks for her Latin (Latina Christiana I), and her literature (D’Aulaire’s Greek Myths), and her Bible study (Christian Studies I).

She uses Rod and Staff English, grade 4, and the aforementioned Spelling Wisdom, and loves both of them. She’s not quite as fond of her Singapore Math.

We only have one of Apologia’s books, Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, and she is using it this year for her science studies, along with their optional workbook.

My first grader is just beginning his first year of Latin, a baby-steps program Prima Latina, that will prepare him to use his sister’s book next year. He’s still working on becoming a fluent reader, so I have him read lots of books, just easy stuff that we have around the house. My whole goal for the beginning years of school is to see to it that a child can read to learn on his own, so he reads. Lots.

I’m using Christian Liberty Press’s materials for English for the first time this year, both their phonics and spelling, for first grade. He howls almost daily about this, but it gets the job done, fairly efficiently. (If anyone has a better idea, let me know. My son would love you for life.) We use their Nature Readers, too, and like them. Our math, again, is Singapore. It’s a perfect fit for him, fast-moving and challenging, and not too much repetition. No howling there.

History is sort of tricky at this age. He’s not mature enough for the studies the older two are doing, but his mind is lively, and he needs to do something. Evan-Moore’s History Pockets are perfect. Good information, at his level, and fun activities that don’t involve a lot of materials that I might not have. He’s doing Ancient Civilizations. He is now studying the Greeks, and reading Usborne Greek Myths, which happens to be what his sister is studying right now, too. She joined him in putting on a Greek play on Friday.

My little guy’s drive and focus extend into his schooling time, which means he’s easy to teach, if I don’t interrupt him when he’s working on something else. He is beginning reading and writing with Memoria Press’s brand-new First Start Reading. It’s the phonics program of my dreams. Wish they’d had it when I first started teaching, seven years ago. I also teach with my old tried-and-true AlphaPhonics, making up sentences as we go for him to read. Once he learned to write all his numbers, I started him on Miquon math. We go through it very slowly, and I only use the first book before we start Singapore, maybe next year.

We’re almost done with Rod and Staff’s Bible stories, with the corresponding coloring book, and then I’m not sure what we’ll do after that.

The older kids each read a story to their little brother every day, and I read fables and fairy tales to him. He is also using an Evan-Moore pocket book: Mother Goose. Here he shows off two of his creations from the book:

My oldest thought it would be a good idea to have you all join us in our Latin lessons. He chose the first two words for you to learn:

He’s a good brother/son, for sure.
Do you think we’re looking at the future here? Should I call him The Professor?

For next week: Real-Life Homeschooling

I planned, prepared, and sat down to write my blog this week. I was ready to start the post with something along the lines of “Directions on How and When to Plant Indoor Seedlings.” It was designed to impart to my readers my vast (ha!) knowledge of the varying qualities of potting soils, proper moisture for germination, and even a few invaluable tips on window placement and transplanting.

However, as I glanced through my carefully chosen, sequential photos, it was not the much awaited process of planting seeds that pulled at my heart. It was the background, the candid, the unseen messages that put me in this nostalgic, heartfelt, pensive writing mood. So, please pardon my one-time abandonment of all-things-garden, but the “planted seeds” I have found in these pictures are of much greater joy and value than my upcoming (literally) tomatoes, peppers, and cilantro.

Priorities.

In gardens and in life, there is not room or energy or time enough for all that we think we want. This picture shows not only that my priority is making salsa this year; it also shows our worn family table, an image of my parents’ priorities in raising us kids.

Around this table is where we all sat for every homemade breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is where my dad drew millions of detailed pictures to explain a math, science, mechanical, or life concept that we just weren’t quite grasping. This table has been the setting of many tears and laughs for many, many people. It is the symbol of the open-heartedness with which my parents have purposefully lived.

People. My mom told me once, “As best as I know, there are three things that last forever: God, His Word, and people. These three are worth investing in.” She is mixing potting soil (which you should always buy by the cubic foot, not weight, since the manufacturer can just add moisture to make it heavier) in the “popcorn bowl,” so named because their house was/is almost always a designated “hang out” spot on Saturday night for high-schoolers and adults alike. Mom would always fill that huge bowl up with home-made popcorn for everyone.

Patience. My mother is commonly acknowledged as one of the world’s best and most patient teachers. In all of my growing-up years, I never remember my mom being too busy to stop whatever she was doing to show me how to make a bed, bake cookies, braid my doll’s hair, or sew on a button. She is still happiest teaching, and here she is, dropping everything to explain the basics of seedlings to her 25 year old daughter.

Start the seedlings in small containers. Get the potting soil damp before you plant, plant two seeds per pot, and set the pots in about an inch of water until the top is moist. Finally, set in a sunny window to germinate.

Enjoy.

There is satisfaction in a job well-done. There is joy in working together. There is contentment in simplicity. Thank you for reading my musings this week. I hope this post inspires you to plant your own seeds, wherever your garden may be.