2011 Tax Round-Up

We’re overdue for a Tax Post.

UPDATED – DARWIN CORRECTS MY CALCULATION:  After reducing the tax-table amount by our tax credits ( Child Tax Credit in our case) the amount we actually owed was only 5%.  Much better.  Matches last year’s number, something of a relief after seeing that big jump in the first try.  Thanks Darwin!

To calculate, take line 55, which is your tax less regular tax credits, divided by line 22, gross income.  At least, that’s the way I do it when Darwin reminds me that’s the way I do it.  Also when I remember that thanks to those PDF’s mentioned below, I don’t have to dig through files to check line number, I can just pull up the PDF in about ten seconds.  Yay.

1.  Our real federal tax rate was 8.5%.  That’s taking our tax from the tax table  cacluation as a portion of gross income. (Line 22 or thereabouts? I already put my forms away.  It was line 22 last year.)  I think it’s a useful calculation, since talk about taxes tends to revolve around theoretical tax rates, when the actual amount you pay may be something quite different.

[FYI for those of you haven’t done the real tax rate check-in before, please don’t post any income information or long explanations.  Just the percentage.  Privacy, modesty, all that.]

2.  I was pleased to see that behind that flashy opening page, IRS.gov remains it’s same sensible self.  If I could only have one website, that would have to be the one.  Since everything else, in theory, I could do without.  But the days of riding downtown and searching through the shelves at the tax office for the forms I need?  I do not miss those days.

3. I love fillable forms.

4. Not the ones provided by third-party businesses I’ve never heard of and wouldn’t dream of using unless I had some time to research it, which I don’t.  But those lovely, lovely IRS-issued PDF’s.  Oh how I love them.

5.  I wish South Carolina would take a hint and follow suit.  Hand-writing is so 2009.

6. But give me that ol’ newsprint 1040 instruction manual.  Thankfully my library stocks them.  I see that last year I made do with printing out and secretly sorta liked it.  I take that back.  I hope there’s some law requiring them forever and ever amen.  I can do PDF instructions for everything else, but for the 1040, I wanna flip pages.  I highlight stuff.  I make notes in the margins.  I write numbers in the grainy gray worksheets.  It is my friend.

7.  Curse you, SC, for not printing SC Long Form booklets anymore.  You, too, should give me a booklet.  I want a booklet.  I never bought into the accusations that SC is a “backward” state, but now I see it is true. Fillable PDF’s, newsprint booklets.  It is The Way.

8.  The IRS really does have good writers.

(Okay, after a certain point, I think they assume nobody is reading the instructions anymore, because if you dig into the more arcane forms, yes, incomprehensible.  But a good ol’ 1040, and schedule A and those guys — yes. Well done.  And thank you generous employers for not giving everybody $7 in foreign-source dividend income as an employee perk, the way you did that other time.  I feel an HR person was burned in effigy over that little incident.)

9.  Thank you kind person who forgot to pay me until January 2012.  I owe you one.  Saved me a ton of headache I didn’t need this year.

10.  Geek humor:  The SuperHusband was talking about income and work and raises.  I told him to tell his boss about our big financial goal: We want to pay Alternative Minimum Tax*.

*It’s a JOKE.   I’m KIDDING.  Neither Powers nor Principalities need to get a laugh at my expense by making it actually happen.  Thank you P&P for your self-restraint.

Kolbe Reviews: National Catholic Reader

Click the picture to see the whole series.

The National Catholic Reader is a series of graded readers originally published in the late 1800’s.   They are similar to the McGuffey readers which were popular in the same era; both series are used among homeschoolers today.  Like a modern reading book, the goal is to create a collection of texts which challenge the reader academically, and which impart the values of their time.  Like a modern reading book, the collected reading texts vary in quality from trite to sublime.

I was using McGuffy prior to enrolling with Kolbe, and was happy to switch over to an explicitly-Catholic series.  But the fact that I unschooled with historical readers tells you a bit about my tastes.

First let it be said: I’m not it in for the saccharine chicken-soup-for-farmhand’s-soul poems and morality tales.  They are the bane of any reading book, and inescapable, for the obvious reason that some people love the stuff.  But for all these might induce a coughing fit in the born-curmudgeon, there are three reasons I like using historical text books:

1.  Students learn to read an older style of language.  The classics are less intimidating if you are already familiar with the usage of previous eras.

2. They shed light on their period.  As historical documents, they are an invaluable insight into late 19th century American life.

3. They call into question the values of our present time.  Very specifically, I like that my kids are presented with a whole world whose priorities and values are utterly opposite much of what we accept as commonplace today.  Not because I think the 19th century was the pinnacle of human achievement, but because it is important not to think that 2012 is Only Way It’s Ever Been.  Here’s an example:

In the second-grade reader, there’s a just-so story about kindness and Providence.  It opens by telling us about two girls, ages five and seven, who have just been orphaned.  They have no relations, except an uncle in a distant village whom no one has heard from in years — he may or may not be alive.   A kindly farmer has an errand in the general direction of the village.  He drives the girls until their ways part, and then drops them off to walk the rest of the way alone.

Think about that.  Last year my 5th grade son was brought home to me by the police because he was out wandering our neighborhood.  (Taking down Lost Cat signs, as it happens).  The officer was polite, and clear that we had done nothing wrong.  All the same, he felt obliged to drive the child home.

This is why I like to use these books.

***

Kolbe sells a study booklet (separate from the course plans) which has reading comprehension questions for the student about each lesson.  The corresponding teacher’s manual has the answers.  The Course Plans assign sixth-graders one or two selections to be read each day, Monday through Thursday.  In 4th Grade, students do lessons from the NCR two days a week, and do outside reading (student’s choice) the other two days.   In 4th Grade the vocabulary course plans include additional words from the NCR, though not necessarily from that week’s lesson.   For those not enrolled with Kolbe, I’d save the money and just type up your own set of assignments.

The course plans often call for memorizing poems.  I know it’s good for the growing brain, and all that.  But I can only bring myself to make my kids memorize things I’d want stuck in my own head.  (See “chicken soup”, above.)  So we frequently skip the memorization thing.

The quarterly exams in the course plans consist of a reading selection from McGuffey’s Reader, with comprehension questions similar to the ones the student has been answering throughout the quarter.  If you are enrolled with Kolbe but your student is using McGuffey for a reading book instead of the NCR, Kolbe recommends you contact them for an alternate set of exams.

Because the exams do not depend on having completed any particular set of readings, it is very easy to skip or substitute selected readings in order to lighten the course load or concentrate on some other interest.

***

The reading level in the later grades is fairly elevated.   One of the sixth grade assignments (and a fun one!) was to act out Shakespeare’s farewell from Wolsey to Cromwell.  In earlier years the texts are more garden-variety stories for children, but by Book Six the selections move firmly into history and spiritual memoir, including meditations on great moments in the history of civilization from ancient times forward.  Great moments you the product of our nation’s public schools may never have known happened.

Because the later books are very mature, there’d be nothing wrong with spreading out Book Six to be used through seventh and eighth grade.  (You could use them into high school, but by then the literature course is itself quite demanding.  The National Catholic Reader is an excellent preparation for the type of reading that will be required throughout high school with Kolbe,  Mother of Divine Grace, or the like.)

One caution:  There is ample room for cultural misunderstandings.   Make sure your sixth grader knows the meaning of the word “niggardly”   lest he mistakenly believe the book is written by bigots.

***

That’s all I know to say.  What questions do you have?

3.5 Time Outs: Vatican Spies

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy putting the mmmmn in Church Militant since  . . . well, awhile.

It's electric. Except when it's not.

1.

You wanna know what’s better than bacon? Eric Sammons e-mailing to ask, “May I send you a review copy of my new book?”

I know!  I couldn’t believe it either!  I figured the SuperHusband must have driven to Florida in desperation, in order to beg a perfect stranger to please give his wife something, anything, that would help her grow in holiness.  He would have observed that I already had a large collection of freebie plastic rosaries, so please did Mr. Sammons know of anything else that might help?

Another possible explanation is that since I liked the first book, maybe I’d like the next one, too.

2.

I worry sometimes that if I get too many review books, it will cause me to neglect my local Catholic bookstore.  Fear not!  The kids are taking care of us.  For example – item #2 that’s better than bacon: This Sunday the “Roamin’ Catholic” bookmobile was parked at our parish.  Yay!  My favorite time of year!  And the 4th grader spots this DVD and asks, “Please can we get this Mom?”

It’s a pretty simple formula:  Child requests DVD about real-life Nazi-thwarting Secret Agent Nun?  Mom says, “Um.  Yes.”  We haven’t watched it yet, though.  I’ve been too busy yelling at the kids to clean the house growing in holiness.

3.

My biggest disappointment in reading Jack Chick tracts was the discovery that, through some bureaucratic snafu, I’d been cheated.  If I really became a citizen of Vatican City the day I was baptized, where’s my passport???  Ah, but now my son has rectified my problem, and issued me my secret-agent ID:

Don’t worry, I’m still gonna carry my regular ID as well.

3.5

 . . . delightful to read on a Sunday afternoon.  See the review just below this post, or click here.

EDITED to add: And yeah, of course it’s link day.  If you have one you want to share, we’re all eyes.

Live and Let Fly by Karina Fabian

UPDATED: Live and Let Fly has been released.  Get your copy here.

I know Karina Fabian through the Catholic Writers Guild, and a few years ago at one of the online conferences, I was the lucky winner of a copy Magic, Mensa & Mayhem, one of her earlier works in the Dragoneye, PI series.

I read it in one long evening of a reading-frenzy, which on the one hand isn’t shocking because if a book has a decent plot I get sucked in; on the other hand, it tells you the book has a decent plot, because Hitchiker’s Guide and Young GKC notwithstanding, I don’t usually read much of anything in the sci-fi/fantasy category.  I subscribed to Karina’s new Rocket Science for the Rest of Us blog hoping maybe some of that science-geek power would rub off, but so far, no luck.  I just keep ending up back at Dr. Boli.  I’m the wrong kind of geeky.

Live and Let Fly is the latest in the DragonEye series (after a detour through zombie land — see Julie D.’s review here), narrated by a dragon, Vern, and his partner, Sister Grace.  They are two magicals operating a detective agency on our side of a dimensional gap that has opened up between the mundane world (ours) and the faerie world.

 

This is Catholic-genre fiction, so Sister Grace is just one of many faerie-nun-superheros doing their part as agents for the Faerie Catholic Church — a rite in union with the Catholic Church as we know it, but with it’s own pope, and it’s own disciplines suitable for the various faerie beings.   [Example: A mundane priest hearing Vern’s confession needs to know: Is it a sin for a dragon to eat another sentient being?]

Why I enjoyed this book:

1.  At the end of the day, it’s a detective thriller.  I like thrillers.

2. I love, love, love the humor.  I had to skip some of my favorite excerpts because they contain spoilers, but here’s a couple quotes from earlier-on:

We’d had so many Save The Universe Cases, we’d given them their own code — STUC.  Now if we could just arrange to get paid more for them.  I was still working that angle.  We had a rates scale, but asking for more money and getting it were two different things — and of course, we weren’t going to not save the world while we negotiated.  Grace was pretty firm on that point.

***

The forty-something human, large enough to keep me fed for days, bearing a walrus mustache, hefted himself out of his chair.  “Sister.  Dragon.  Welcome to the Bureau of Interdimensional Law Enforcement.”

BILE? There’s a name that must have been made in committee.  Grace landed a subtle kick on my ankle, however, so I held off on the snide comments . . .

3.  The pixies and brownies just crack me up.  And Hel’s kitchen.  Who knew?

Difficulties:

1. The writing is fast-paced and the story moves right along, never bogs down.  The main characters are well-developed across the the course of the book.   I did have some difficulty, though, with following the early crime-scene and around-town dialogue, and likewise again back at the station at the end of the story — lots of minor characters filling out the set.  Some of the characters I recognized from MMM, but since that one is set primarily in Florida, I wasn’t familiar with all the locals from previous stories set in Los Lagos, Colorado, where Vern keeps his lair.  It’s worth tooling around the DragonEye, PI blog if you need to get up to speed.

2. I kinda stink at mythology.  You who know your gods and goddesses will get a lot more out of the many references — sometimes in passing, other times with assorted demi-gods coming on as significant characters.   I could follow along, though — the books provides all the essential background on the major players.

Who would like this book?   If you’d rather be reading Thomas Hardy, please, just go.  Go.  Do not even look.  See the dragon and nun on the cover?  This is not for you.

But if you want playful adult* Catholic fiction that entertains?  Then you’re set.

To learn more:

1. Take a look at the 10,000 stops on the book tour this month.

2. The book is slated for e-book release from Muse-It-Up Publishing April 20th.

*FYI for all that this is very explicitly Catholic-genre, joyfully kitschy with no apologies, if you’re looking for sugar-coated g-rated fluff, skip to another book.  I’d rate this Teen/Adult for language, innuendo, and mature themes.  More gracefully and faithfully handled than anything ever said in a junior-high locker room, but no matter how sorry and degenerate our culture, these topics really are not meant for little readers.  So parents read first before you hand it over to your pre-teen, you’ll need to judge what your child is ready to read.

7 Quick Takes: Catholic Family Fun

Land of the 700 Takes.

1.

Today for my Quick Takes I’m reviewing Sarah Reinhard’s new book, Catholic Family Fun.  This is a stop on Sarah’s virtual book tour, so she should be lurking around the combox ready to answer any questions you have.

FYI, Sarah is not only a super-friendly person, she is also an extrovert, which means that her life as a writer is made tolerable by finding people to chat with.  So say “Hi Sarah!”.  She’ll be excited.

2.

This is what the book looks like:

It’s about 140 pages, paperback, nice sturdy glossy cover.  It’s designed to float around your house and be abused.

3.

What’s inside?

You know how women’s magazines have those little articles about fun things to do with your family?  This is like 10 years of those ideas all in one place.  Only you are spared those obnoxious photos of pristine toaster ovens and closets organized by that sect of hermits who take a vow to own nothing but three pieces of splashy, sassy, ready-for-spring ensembles to pair with their strappy heels.  Also, no perfume ads.

Instead you get page after page of practical, realistic ideas for unplugged family activities that you can customize to match your kids’ ages and interests.  The chapters are organized by types of activities (crafts, meals, outdoor adventures, etc.), and there are several easy-to-read indexes in the back to help you quickly find the ones that match your budget and energy level.  Most of the suggestions are either free, or involve money you were going to spend anyway.   (You are going to eat today, right?)

Other than the chapters on prayer and on the saints, the activities themselves can be purely fun family time, or they can be explicitly tied to the Catholic faith.   Every activity includes suggestions on how to make the faith connection.

4.

What if you aren’t crafty? Don’t panic on the crafts, there aren’t that many and they are very low-key.  Indeed, I’d say this is the perfect book for people who don’t do glitter glue, foam art, or anything involving popsicle sticks, ever.  Did I mention Sarah R. is a real mom of young children, with a farm, and a writing job, and . . . you get the picture.  You may find yourself wanting an internet connection to pull off a few of these activities (I see you have access to one, very good), but no glue gun will ever be needed.

What if you are, in fact, the grumpy, curmudgeonly type? See the next section.  I advise letting your kids pick the activities.  That way you never need fear you’ve gotten all goofy and relaxed for nothing.  Also you could tell the kids you aren’t going to do Chapters 1 and 2 yourself, but you’ll give them five bucks if they’ll just be quiet while your finish reading the paper.  (Um, wait a minute.  No, that’s not how the book’s supposed to work.  Oops.)  Chapters 3-9 are Curmudgeon-Safe, though the one idea about a backyard circus makes me a little nervous . . .

5.

Who could use this book?  Three groups of  people come to mind, and last was a surprise to me, but it’s true:

1.  Parents, grandparents, and other relatives.

• If you’re trying to think up new ways to connect to the kids, and get out of the rut of doing the same old things.
• If you have a long summer vacation ahead, with stir-crazy children and no money for expensive camps and activities.
• Or if you didn’t have a satisfyingly Catholic childhood, and you want to find ways to share and practice your faith without being all stodgy and dour about it.

2.  Kids.  My daughter is fighting me for custody of our copy.  The book is eminently readable, so you really can hand it to a late-elementary or older child, and say, “Pick something out for us to do Saturday.”  I like that because then the onus is on the kids to decide which activity sounds fun — and I’m always surprised by what kids come up with when given the choice.

3.  Catechists, VBS volunteers, scout leaders, and anyone else charged with keeping a group of kids busy for an hour or two.  Some of the activities will only work in a family setting, but very many of them are well-suited to using in a classroom.  The suggestions for faith tie-ins make this an awesome resource for religious ed and VBS.  If your parish doesn’t have money for a high-priced pre-packaged program with talking pandas and cheesey chipmunk videos, you could seriously just go through this book and pick out activities to assemble a home-grown series of your own.

6.

You know who loves a good VBS program?  Allie Hathaway.  It’s Friday, so we’re praying for her.  And hey, offer up a quick one for Sarah Reinhard’s intentions as well.  Thanks!

7.

What else do you want to know?  I’ve wrestled the book out of my daughter’s hands, so I’m happy to look stuff up and answer questions.   Sarah’s around here somewhere, and if she doesn’t get to you today, she’s a very reliable combox-attender, so feel free to ask her questions as well.

You can also take a look at the Catholic Family Fun Facebook page, where people are sharing ideas, and the Catholic Family Fun website at Pauline Media, where if you click around there are a pile of useful resources in case maybe you don’t know any camp songs or g-rated knock-knock jokes.

Click the picture to find out where the book tour is going next.

PS:  This and a package of pre-cooked bacon would make a great Mother’s Day gift.

**************************************

Updated to toss in three bits of full disclosure, which together give the most accurate picture:

7.1) Pauline Media sent me a review copy.

7.2) You might have caught on, Sarah & I are friends, and perhaps you’ve noticed we work together at the CWG blog.  Which means that if she wrote a lousy book, I just wouldn’t review it.  I’m very grateful she doesn’t write lousy books, because that saves us a lot of awkward moments.

7.3) See “free book” above.  I gave a copy of this book to my DRE, who is a mom and grandma of 10 bazillion children, and always griping observing that all the grandkids do is play Angry Birds.  I knew she’d love to pass it around her family, and I was thrilled to see she could use it for religious ed ideas too.  But you know what?  I did not give her my free copy.  See, that’s what I would have done if this was a so-so book.  Instead, I paid cash to buy her a brand new copy of her own.

Hey and a gratuitous 7.4: Let’s just clarify: If you want a collection of pom-pom art ideas, this is not your book.

Mothers, Teachers, Plans and Purposes

My Hail Mary post at Sarah R.’s place is up.  What I discovered writing it, is that I’d been looking at this question of feminine genius all backward.  Our culture wants us to look at men, and try to guess how women compare.  But just ask Adam — it’s the other way around.  He was adrift until he discovered Eve.  What, after all, is the purpose of tending the garden and taking care of creation, and all the other amazing and wonderful things guys do?  What is the work of Christ, the bridegroom, done in service to His bride, the Church?  He makes her mission possible.  That is, Christ and the Church have a single mission.

BTW I stuck the photo up big, here, so you can see that girl-smile.  It doesn’t quite come across when posted in moderation, the way sensible blog-owners do.

***

I’ve got an article in the new issue of Mater et Magistra.  I haven’t seen the final (edited) version, so I can’t tell you exactly all the parts that made the cut.  [You never know how many words there will be room for, once all the articles for the month are gathered together.  So I submitted my article divided into sub-sections so it would be easy to edit down in chunks.]

But anyhow, it’s pure accountant-frugality meets homeschool-desperation: How do you decide what books to buy?  Don’t panic, I don’t advise anyone to act like I do and buy waaaaaay too many books.  Instead I actually talked with a bunch of much more sensible and practical homeschool moms, and found out what does and does not work in real life, for staying sane and under-budget, and still getting school done.

Let me know what you think when you read it, I’ll happily post your thoughts here.

***

I haven’t figured out how to get my Amazing Catechists feed working quite right, but one day I will.  Meanwhile, I posted about Journals & the Sacrament of Confession this week.  Because a real live human being (who I don’t know personally, and I have no idea when or where or how the incident took place) asked my opinion on this:

Is it appropriate for religion teachers to ask students about their sins?  In my friend’s  religion class, the teacher asked him to write in his journal about one of the sins he would be confessing at his next confession.  What do you think?

No, seriously.  I didn’t make that up.   I can write fiction, but there are limits.  And anyway, I don’t do horror.

3.5 Time Outs: On Tour

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who pulled the ol’ you-vacationed-where?? trick on me.  Works every time. I’m easy to surprise.

Click and be amazed.

1.

We unplugged for Triduum, and wow:  Peaceful.  But look, the power of scheduling made it look like I was on the internet: In Defense of Pretty Good Schools, at CatholicMom.com. Technically it’s a homeschooling column (because that’s how I tricked Lisa H. into letting me write for her — I said, “Gosh, do you need any homeschooling columnists?”), but actually it’s for everyone.

2.

Remember that whole girl problem I was having before?  That Christian LeBlanc answered so easily, like he always does? I stole his answer, of course.  He’ll probably cringe when he sees what I went and did with it.  My post on the word “Women” goes up at Sarah R.’s blog on Thursday morning.  She says she likes it.  But if you want something really smart, with Doctors of the Church and all that, you’d better just read Jeff Miller’s post about “Among”.  Or for a reflection about intimacy and Old English, you’d want Julie Davis on “Thou”.

But Sarah’s going to be nice to me at least until Friday, because her Catholic Family Fun book tour visits right here at this blog, when I’ll be reviewing her book in seven quick takes, for the other evil overlord who we won’t mention just now.  What you need to know today: It’s good enough I actually bought a copy with my own money to give as a gift to somebody.  Admittedly I buy a lot of books.  But when I acquire a second copy, that’s your hint.

3.

Look, more things for smart people:  Barbara Nicolosi let us post the transcript of her workshop on “Towards a Literature that is Catholic” at CWG.  I think maybe she doesn’t read the Hardy Boys much, because she says things like:

My theory is that the secular world is not anti-Catholic as much as it is anti-bad art.

Me, on the other hand, I’m all about bad art*.  Then again, I’m not real secular.

3.5

In more book tour excitement, this coming Monday I’m reviewing Karina Fabian’s Live and Let Fly, and let me tell you, it is absolutely . . .

 

***

Well, that’s all for today.  It’s Link Day once again, which is not an obligation, just an opportunity.  Because no one likes having their perfectly good link stuck in my inbox with a little star next to it, when it could be down in the combox for everyone to enjoy.  One link per comment so you don’t get accidentally caught in the spam dungeon, where even detective dragons dare not prowl.

And hey, Happy Easter!

*This is not a strictly factual statement.  I’m good with hokey genre fiction as long as the story is fun and entertaining, though I reserve the right to joke about it over a cup of coffee with the boy afterwards.  But even I have my limits.

Vocation and Holiness

This morning as I stumbled down the hall, coffee in hand, the fourth grader handed me A Bridge to Terabithia.  “Mom,” she warned me, “don’t let anybody read this for school.  It is terrible.  It has very foul language.”

“Oh?”  I had read it way back in elementary school, but hadn’t looked at it since.  I couldn’t really remember what was in the book.

“Yes.  They use the d-word.  And the parents say things like ‘crap’ and ‘crud’ and ‘you stupid’.  And that’s just in one chapter.”

Ah.  Duly warned.  I thanked her for the head’s up.

1.  Simcha Fisher writes:

We’re so used to seeing our own children, so used to the idea that they’re under our care, that we sometimes forget that the angels rejoice when a young person goes out into the world armed with truth and love, instead of going forth with their hearts cramped and crabbed by an acceptance of abortion.  This is where the battle is fought: in individual hearts.  Each abortion is a tragedy because it ends an individual life—but each heart that is taught how to love is a true and eternal victory.

Yes, raising our children lovingly is commonplace, a duty, nothing new.  So what?  It’s still a big deal.  It’s still the way to save souls.  This is the great thing about being part of the Culture of Life:  everything counts.  You don’t have to save your receipts!  Your good works have been noted, and they will not go to waste.

2.  Bearing reminds me, I’m not the only mom who got paid to go to graduate school, in order to prepare for a rewarding career in the ultra-non-profit sector.  I don’t typically feel guilty about this.  Back when I was applying for fellowships, I assumed I’d ultimately end up in some kind of field that was a natural extension of my start in accounting — maybe moved out of staff and into operations, or teaching accounting 101 at the community college, or who knows what — who can really predict how a career will turn?  I also knew that I wanted to be a mom, and that I was intentionally picking a field that lent itself to momness.  Ditching it all in order to stay home and raise kids?  If only I could be so lucky.

At the fellowship interviews, I was asked, “What do you see yourself doing in five years?  Ten years?”

I answered honestly. “Solving problems.”

Which is what I do.

3.  This week at the Catholic Writers Guild blog I’ve been shuffling around the schedule to get all the mundane writer-talk posts pushed off until after Easter.  I didn’t want Holy Week to be chit-chat as usually.   But Sarah Reinhard’s post for today, even though it’s sort of a blogging post, it’s really a Holy Week post:  Remember Your Priorities.

–> Hey and real quick please pray for Sarah’s very urgent prayer request for a family member with a scary, likely life-threatening diagnosis on the way.  Thanks.

4.  You know what?  I just love this photo so much.  I was thrilled with Julie D. picked it out for her 1,000 Words post.  Because I just like to look at it.

5. Holiness versus Weirdness.  It’s a constant battle.  I spend a lot of time just trying to figure out how to live life.  I feel stupid about this, because, well, not knowing how to live your life has got to be one of the marks of stupidity, right?  But at the same time, I live in a culture that doesn’t know how to live life, so I remind myself it’s not exactly shocking that my adulthood be devoted to figuring out what I ought to be doing instead.

And I’m not alone.  Which makes reading Catholic Lifestyle Lit of a decade ago so amusing, because the holiness-fads of years gone by shout out like a pair of parachute pants.  Which is why my children in ten years will be laughing about this over Thanksgiving dinner:

When I wrote about fasting from artificial light in the Register a while back, I got a ton of interesting responses. One of my favorites was from a dad who told me about this family tradition that they’ve been doing for 30 years:

We turn off the light when we leave for Holy Thursday Mass and don’t turn them on again until we return from the Saturday Easter Vigil at around midnight on Saturday.

We got the idea when our parish turned off the lights and had us exit in silence on Holy Thursday. And we entered at the Easter Vigil in darkness which continued until the Gloria. And, of course, Good Friday services were held during the daytime so lighting was not a main focus. So we got the idea to practically “live” this period when Jesus the “light of the world” was taken away from us.

I think we might try this this year. Anyone else going to give it a shot?

My kids will the story of how I read this idea at some Catholic lady’s blog, and when I told Jon, not only did he like the idea, he proposed we just flip all the breakers in the house except the one for the kitchen.

So yeah.  Weird.  I know we are.  I know it kids.

6.  But listen, weird isn’t all bad.  My garden is awesome.  If by “awesome” we mean: I like it.  And I was sitting in it this spring, and realized that Margaret Realy’s book about Prayer Gardens had come true.  I read it, followed the instructions, and wow, it worked.  Highly recommended if you want a little quiet garden-y oasis, and need some ideas about how to make it work.

And with that I’ll cut out the rest of the chit-chat and go be all vocational.  Have a great week, and I’ll see you back here come Easter or so.

7 Quick Takes: Troublemakers

The Land of 700 Takes.

1.

It’s the end of the Catholic Writer’s Conference Online, and I had a reader here take me to task for not publicizing it enough.  (“Conference? What conference?”).  So I’m going to fix that.

2.

The thing is this:  A year ago, Mike Hays and I were making trouble at Sarah Reinhard’s otherwise very civilized blogging workshop.  We were saying things like, “And the CWG ought to have a blog!  And Mike will pray once a week! And Jen is willing to help! Because she always volunteers for things, even though she has no time, but this time she really thinks she should!”

3.

And someone took us up on it.  Ann Lewis presented me with a newborn blog, and said, “Here you go, find writers.”   Mike’s led prayers over at CWG every week since.  He rocks.

4.

So anyway, what you need to know is that if you’re a Catholic writer, you really ought to check out the Catholic Writers Guild.  And if you’re a Christian writer of any flavor, join us all through April for 30K for Christ.  There’s a 30K for Christ forum for CWG members, and non-members are encouraged to check-in at the blog with progress reports, or join in via Twitter following top-secret instructions Sarah Reinhard’s going to decode and make public by Sunday.

Meanwhile, you should steal this stylish 30K Logo so that everyone knows you aren’t just writing stuff, you’re on a mission:

5.

Allie Hathaway’s a Catholic writer.  Pray for her.  Thanks.

6.

Of the 7,000 cool things I learned at the online conference, my favorite is this:

Sr. Marie Paul Curley is Jim Curley’s sister.  That’s why she looks so happy in her profile pics on her blog.  If you weren’t already reading her blog, now’s the time to start.

And in news culled from that blog: Act One is accepting applications for the coming year?  Yes? Still open?  I don’t see a deadline.

But I do see this: A casting call for ex-Christians, disaffected Christians, and people who just don’t do organized religion:

SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS APRIL 4, 2012. Project is unpaid, but participants will receive copy, credit, and reimbursement for production-related costs.

ABOUT YOU LOST ME

With You Lost Me, Barna Group researcher David Kinnaman shows why younger Christians are leaving the church and rethinking their faith. Through research and statistics, Kinnaman shows how pastors, church leaders and parents have failed to equip young people and how this has serious consequences. Those disconnected from the church are not statistics, says Kinnaman — they are people with real stories. You Lost Me, in part, is a challenge to the church to slow down and listen to those who consider themselves outsiders.

FYI for those who rightly worry about these things, Act One has made it’s mark as an outspoken criticism of the sugary 3rd-rate rah-rah-rah team brand of inane Christian programming.  So this looks promising.

7.

And now I’m going to Aldi. Wait!  No I’m not! The kids made a list . . . and we all forgot! The truck’s in the shop!  Ack.  Leaky hose.  It’ll be home soon I hope.  Good thing our idea of “out of groceries” involves still owning large amounts of food.

And tomorrow: Taxes.  I’d better get a head start since I’ll have to do grocery run tomorrow. Do you know what my #1 writing rule is?  If you can’t write as clearly as the IRS, you should be fired.

7.5

Whoa!  What’s with the website redesign at IRS??? Ack.  It’s colorful. Bright.  Cheesy photos of satisfied customers.  NOOOOOO!  I want my boring soothing, orderly accountant-blue back.  Nooooooo!

 

Have a great weekend.

Kolbe Reviews: Vocabulary and Composition

In Part 1: I tell you about the Vocabulary Book.

In Part 2: I speculate about Composition.

Kolbe uses the Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop series.  If you used a vocabulary book in middle or high school, it’s just like that.

Each chapter introduces a set of unrelated vocabulary words with definitions.  There are exercises to help the student learn to use the word.  At the end of the chapter, Kolbe directs you to give a spelling test and then have the student use the words in original sentences.  A teacher’s manual is available, but it never occurred to me to look for one.

My kids work through their books independently 95% of the time.  My 6th grader finds it easy, even relaxing.  The 4th grader sometimes has questions, and needed some coaching through the first set of exercises on analogies.  You can use the book as a consumable or not — it is easier on both student and teacher if you let the kid write in the book, but not impractical to write answers on a separate sheet of paper.  I relented and let my fourth grader write in hers, because she found the back-and-forth overwhelming.

Useful Tip: See if you can get hold of a used copy of Spelling Power.

We lucked into an older edition a few years ago.  It has massively detailed, well-researched instructions for how to help students learn to spell.  Having used the method for a couple years, the kids now know how to study a word.  It makes a difference.  I do know a mom who found that although SP worked great for her first three kids, her youngest child needed to study words grouped by spelling rule.  Having memorized the method by then, she sold her copy of SP and got out a rhyming dictionary for creating word lists.

There may be other good resources for teaching the methods of learning to spell.  If you know of one, please share a link.  But this one I’ve used and found it informative and helpful.

The Course Plans

The fourth grade course plans for vocabulary include a list of words from the National Catholic Reader to be copied, defined, and studied for the vocabulary test.  My fourth grader was getting bogged down and frustrated, and so we took the advice at the introduction to the course plans and now do only the words in the vocabulary book itself.

The fourth grade course plans assign work for each day according a set method for studying (pre-test, exercises, study, graded test).  If you are not enrolled in Kolbe,  I would skip these plans and just devise your own.   (If you want the convenience of everything all written up for you, enroll.)

The sixth grade course plans assign work from the vocabulary book three days a week, and on the fourth day, an assignment from the Sadlier Writing Workshop Level A.  You could comfortably skip the plans and assign pages yourself without difficulty.

When I bought books, I failed to realize we needed the writing book.  So I took out the boy’s copy of Voyages in English and used the composition portion of that text to write a set of assignments for each Thursday of the year.  Thus I have no idea what’s in the regular book.

More Composition Programs I Know Nothing About

This fall Kolbe rolled out a new Classical Composition program.  You can only read about the fourth grade program on the Kolbe site, because no matter what grade you begin, the instruction is to start with Year1 of the program.  Here is the publisher’s info at Memoria Press, which provides some more details, though it looks like even there, information is limited.

Now let me start by saying that I don’t go in for this hyped-up We’re So Historic Look At Us Being Classical thing.  I’m utterly unmoved by someone using words like “Fable Stage” and “Narrative Stage”.  You could as soon call it “Minty Fresh” and “Tastes Great Less Filling”, and I’d be just as convinced.

–> But when I see the course descriptions in the Kolbe catalog, this looks exactly like what I find new writers need to learn.  I say this based on my experience with editing, critiquing, and bringing grown-ups to the point where they can write clearly and well.*

I just took a look at the pdf preview of the student guide, and it looks kind of painful.  But thorough.  Seriously thorough.  This is what editors do to people.  If you want to write well, this is the process.

Done with too much intensity, however, I find children can quickly learn to hate writing.  On the other hand, the methodical approach to working with words may appeal to some students who freeze up at Creativity On Demand.

Looking at the rigor of the program, I have mixed feelings about who would really benefit most from this course, and how parents ought to teach from it.  If anyone has any experience you’d like to share, please do.

*This is the point where I congratulate myself for not using swear words and “five paragraph essay” in the same sentence.  It’s an insult to the swear words.