THE PROM WILL BE IN FOUR DAYS OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!

Yeah, the excitement is running pretty high around here. 

Did you know there is a word for the people who think they can cure every single wrong thing through correct application of nutrition? Its called Orthorexia. I have a lot of sympathy for folks who get snared in the idea that if we just figure out the right way to eat (and really, the right way to do everything) we'll all be happy and healthy and live long good lives. Everyone can see how believing nutrition matters too much is a trap leading to unhappiness. No one wants orthorexia.

Put another way, a wise woman once told me that controlling our food is a very common way of dealing with the chaos of life. If life feels out of control, at least food can be brought to heel. (Or heal, as the case may be.) Its really really REALLY good for me to keep these ideas in mind. I am aware of the chaos of life, of decay, of imperfection, of the ways we all fail all the time, the ways I fail all the time, and worst of all, the ways I am unaware of my failure. I wish I could eat my way around all of that. I know I can't.

That doesn't mean we should not talk about nutrition. We still have to think about feeding ourselves better. Almost all of us are doing an actively bad job navigating the boondoggle of food in this place and time. Humans on the planet right now are getting unhealthier by the generation, for the first time ever. (Weston Price predicted this predicament as early as the 1930s.) Our fertility is in decline. I'm referring to fertility here in the way farmers understand the word. Fertility doesn't simply equal reproduction. Fertility indicates sustainability, normal good health with normal life span free from most disease, and increasing population within balance. Yes, balance does indicate chaos. And here, we've made a circle. But its a good fertile circle. Children living in a fertile circle do not get asthma, are not allergic to food, and are at no risk of diabetes 2.

If you happen to be a person who is lucky enough to get a hold of actual nourishment---the kind that improves your body, your outlook, your hormones, and your emotional equilibrium, you should be grateful. What you have learned about food is an important thing to talk about. Through legitimate nutrition, which, by the way, only comes from fertile systems, you have been lucky enough to glimpse a beautiful simple and nearly lost truth. You just (I just) have to keep remembering the other truth, life is chaotic and decay is a fact. A good fertile fact.

Remember when I was bitching about the new common core standards, how schools plan to drop literature in favor of technical writing? In "Why I Support The Common Core Standards"  Karen Prior makes an excellent argument for the new core standards, based on the fact that kids are graduating from high school without being proficient readers. Apparently many kids have been skating along on discussions of literature based on their feelings rather than the actual text.

When we first started homeschooling my mother in law scoffed at the idea my son was reading above grade level. "Yes, but comprehension is the key. It (his reading) doesn't mean anything without comprehension." We were talking, at the time, about a five year old. So I replied that no one reads for pleasure what they don't understand at least pretty well. Now that my son is a teenager I would add that no one reads at their current reading level forever. Reading begets better reading which begets interest in more complex reading. At least, that's how its worked at our house.

Homeschoolers read for fun. There is no better way to improve reading skills.

Folks often discuss the difference between classic homeschoolers and unschoolers. Which also roughly correlates to Christian homeschoolers and secular homeschoolers. Of course, folks will bicker about these labels. These same labels will also shift their definition within families, depending on who the teacher/parent is talking too in any given moment. There are many ways to talk about what unschooling is and how that relates to a Classic education, as "classic" is understood among homeschoolers. Add the specter of God and appropriate behavior for children in society to any such discussion, and its easy to see there is plenty of wiggle room in every definition. And passions run high. These are words whose technical definitions defy precision yet matter profoundly to the homeschooling community if not to all teachers or all parents.

We homeschoolers carry these classifications around ourselves like cloaks, sheltering cloaks. We think it matters a great deal, which side we're on. If we're with the classical religious folks or the breezy avant garde of theoretical pedagogy. But we're wrong. These distinctions are not most important.

The most important distinction is not how you homeschool, but why. All the different forms of schooling children can work well. The single most important factor in growing a baby to an adult will be parental input. In that way, all children are homeschooled. But among parents who identify as homeschoolers, the most important factor in getting their children educated is not a classic format nor unschooling nor any gradient between. Mind-bending as it truly is, all those different ways work. And work well.

I can tell you the different ways work and work well because I've seen the evidence with my own eyes. I've watched the kids grow up and leave home and display competency and ability to do what they want or need to do. And the scant research that's been done correlates well with positive results. Also, major universities adore homeschoolers---classic as well as unschooled. They will take them in almost any form they can get them. They will take them in a box, they will take them without sox, they will even take them from a fox. Universities love homeschoolers. So much, they have a tendency to wave all the stupid bullshit requirements they have for schooled kids. Which is a huge and scandalous secret. Don't tell anyone. But if you can demonstrate a homeschooling background and you are an intelligent person with integrity, you can probably go to college. Which, to my way of thinking, is a pretty solid indicator that something right is happening with homeschoolers. Universities have noticed the difference and they approve. No one can argue with that.

So what does it mean that how one homeschools does not matter as much as why one homeschools? Process is not as important as intention? That is an interesting proposition.

One thing sad thing I've noticed, lately, is that expelled homeschoolers--kids pulled out of school and thereby "homeschooled"--tend not to do well. Probably because their parents never intended homeschool. Their why isn't in the right place. Consequently they seem to have a hard time finding their how.

This is an old sheet my kids wanted me to keep because its sentimental to them. I've been in a fit of cleaning up, cleaning out, cleaning through. Cleaning through what? Time. Cleaning through time. How can we clean through time? I can't answer that question. I can only say cleaning through time is an inevitability. It happens and will continue to happen whether you resist or attempt participation. Still, I'm sorry I put this silly fragile clearly worn-out sheet in the trash. Because of what my son said. Not the funny thing he said about the sheet representing eccentricity. The touching thing he said: "Smell it." Mom, go ahead and smell it. It smells like home. It smells like home while you're standing in the middle of home, in the middle of the time where your home is still around you and you are not away from it. For a thing to accomplish such a feat is extraordinary. In the same way the sound of my husband snoring can occasionally drive me to extremes of exhaustion and frustration such that I think about death. Yet my dog snoring now at my feet moves my heart in a tender way, almost to tears, knowing she is getting old in this time in this home. And we won't always have her. This is the phenomenon that dogs me, dogs all of us. We can't save anything. Hoarding everything won't improve anyone's life. Time will take as much as it gives, an eternal expression of quantum electrodynamics.

Except the hole inside the sheet. Time can't take the portal through which our hearts glimpse love. That is what remains. The hole animates the material, indicates value. Allows us the opportunity to see truth.

 Beer run: Carolina Brewery Oatmeal Porter. And my True Love. Micro dates are a new concept around here. Such as heading out to buy some beer after dinner and pausing for a kiss in the driveway. Sometimes that's all it takes to sustain a healthy relationship between busy exhausted parents. 

My daughter says I am leaving "stink trails" through the house with my kimchi. Which may be true. But the spicey/garlicy/gingery/ goodness is helping my allergies. Its like my superpower right now. So I guess we're just going to have to stink it up for a while.

In the meantime, I'm renovating our upstairs. By myself. One paint stroke at a time. A very pleasing project. I've painted my son's room. Next come the hall, baths, daughter's room, then the master suite! I'm also planning to decorate the stair risers in our house. Which I think looks especially nice when the stairs curve, as ours do. I love this example. But I'm going for something less wordy and a lot more colorful for our own stairs:

After the painting is done the kids and I will finish removing all the old wall to wall carpet. Then we are going to install a floating hardwood floor. That should make a nice homeschooling project for the summer doldrums later this season. Wish me luck and kimchi power!

New room, deep green, a lot more organized, and waiting for an actual floor. We had his favorite posters dry mounted which makes a bigger difference than you might think, visually. Wait a minute! IS THAT THE POSTER WRAPPING UNDER HIS BED?! I think it is! Yeah, clearly no one has to worry we're going to get too clean or well organized or upgraded to where we can't be recognized.

 IS THAT A TOWEL ON THE FLOOR?!

 The shelves look great, though. And I truly love this color green he picked. Very soothing and calm.

 How many pictures do I need? As many as it takes, Buddy. As many as it takes. I love you! :o)