Bleg: Which Calendar?

I need a new calendar.

The current one has these features, which must stay:

• Week-at-glance
• 6.5″ x 9.5”, and not fat.  Fits in a purse.  I could go as large as a spiral bound notebook, depending.
• A place to stuff odd papers.  I guess I could duct tape one of these on, if I find the almost-perfect calendar.
• Punch-dot corner thingie so it’s easy to find where you are (some other equivalent technology is acceptable in theory).
• Not silly expensive.

I don’t need to impress anyone. I don’t need it to inspire or entertain.   Ideally it would not have goofy cartoon characters on it.  It can be academic year or calendar year or tax year or whatever.  But here’s what I do need:

Lists.

The multi-tasking around here has exceeded the capacity of the current calendar.  I need a place I can stick a grocery list and about ten different independent-of-each-other to-do lists.  They are not the ready-made lists that come with “Family Organizers”, unless your family organizer has pre-made tabs for “Manuscripts to Edit” “Notes – Book A” “Notes – Book B” . . . “Catechism Prep” “Creatures Needing Medical Attention” “Figure Out Why The Tomatoes All Rotted” etc.

The all-purpose running to-do list isn’t covering it any more.  So I guess I’m looking for one of those binder-ish calendars, that lets you can add in your own tabs and sections and stuff?

(Curiously, my mother had one of those by the time she was my age.  Go figure.)

So:  What do you, or your spouse, or your secretary, or that other sort-of-pulled-together person you know (but not the super-organized neat-n-tidy one) like to use?  Recommend away.

Thanks!

 

PS: I do not care about your digital device.  I will be very patient and kind if you must tell me about your little electronic love.  But I’m a paper person.  Tried digital several times, no luck. My brain is not made for that.  Paper.  Paper.

 

Advent!

Catching up on my goofing off, and could not agree more with this post by Fr. L on Anticipating Advent.

Our preparation: Yesterday took the kids to Target to get them decent black slacks that reach all the way to the tops of shoes, after the, er, interesting things that appeared on our altar last Sunday.  Yikes.   Had to do that fast before the shoppers arrived.

So I’m reading Fr. L and thinking, yes, yes, yes!  And then I thought, “that theme seems vaguely familiar.” Wow I should totally write down what that lady said on Sarah’s blog, gosh I bet she’s so pulled together.  [See: Things That Appeared On Our Altar]

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Advent PSA: If you’re on the fence about darkening the doors of a Catholic Church.

Topic that came up last night:

Let’s say you are a lapsed Catholic or non-Catholic who is looking for a church to attend after a long time away.  Perhaps you have noticed there’s a Catholic parish near you, and you have a vague idea about maybe dropping in sometime.  But you’re nervous.  You’ll stand out.  You can’t remember (or never knew) how the whole Mass thing works.  People are going to laugh at you when you say or do the wrong thing.

Is that you?

Come this Sunday!  Everyone will be just as lost!  We’ll all have our eyes glued to the handy pamphlet in the pews!  We’ll be mumbling!  We’ll say the wrong things!  The new (old) hand motions will feel so weird!  The music will be really good or really bad or just really strange . . . to all of us together!

It’s Leveling The Playing Field Sunday.  Come. 

More uses for vegetable peelers: Parmesan Cheese

If I had to choose between running water and a vegetable peeler, I’m not sure which one I’d pick.

Anyhow, here’s last night’s discovery:

We already knew that slivers of parmesan cheese taste better than slices.  Thinner = more flavorful.

Certain people are not reliable with a paring knife.  For necessary thinness.

Vegetable peelers are designed for shaving slivers.

It works!  Block of Parmesan + Vegetable Peeler =  Fluffy Pile of Parmesan Slivers.  Fast.  And then it is so easy to pretend to be generous to the cheese vultures, because each 1” x 2″ sliver is only a minuscule portion of your cheese pile.

 

Some discoveries are too good not to share.  Now returning to the regularly scheduled Not A Cooking Blog.

Health Insurance Regulations – Go Comment

The Impractical Catholic has a very practical link to how to submit your comments on the new health insurance regulations.  Click on his link, it is very easy from there.   You can scroll through the regulations to make sure you know what you are talking about, and then submit the comment of your choice.

Naturally I forgot to copy mine for posterity before it submitted, by my talking points were this:

• I quoted the bit about how the goal of the religious exemption was to protect houses of worship.
• I observed this was too narrow a view of “religious institution”, that did not represent the reality of religious institutions such as hospitals, schools, and other benevolent works.
• I proposed a compromise, in which employees of such institutions could choose either to accept the employer-provided plan, or use a cash allowance of the same value to purchase the plan of their choice from another source.
• In that way, the religious employer is not required to directly fund a health care plan that includes treatments contrary to its religious tenets, but employees remain free to choose some other plan as they see fit.

I didn’t say it, but it’s a bit like the difference between saying, “every employee shall be given a per-diem allowance to pay for travel expenses at a hotel or brothel”, versus specifying a per diem amount per day, and leaving it to the employee to decide where he wishes to lodge.

So that’s what I wrote.  Go write something yourself.  It is so easy and fast.  Really, it is.

 

Okay, here’s the link directly to regulations.gov that I followed from Impractical Catholic’s post.  Go.  Now.  Seriously.

 

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Also: Reconsider giving your nine-year-old a blog on the same blogging program you yourself use.  I almost posted this on a hot-pink ProudKittyCat blog.  That woulda made the grandparents raise an eyebrow.

Kolbe update, week 5

We just started week 5, thought I’d give a little report on how things are going.  Re-cap: This is our first year using Kolbe.  6th and 4th grader are enrolled, and mostly following the plan with a couple substitutions.  2nd grader and kindergartener continue to do the home-grown, relaxed-schooling thing.

Overall Impression: Very happy with the decision.  On a day like today (evil dictator felled by an evil-er cold), wow it is SO MUCH BETTER having the plans ready-to-go.  Oh I know, it is so easy to make your own course plans.  Oh, I know, it only takes a few minutes to type them up each week.  But wow, being able to growl at a child and say, “Where are you in your homework?” is even easier.

–> Without ready-made, day-by-day plans, two big kids would definitely still be on the relaxed-schooling plan, which I really love for the little guys, but is not the ideal choice for our older kids.  Way too many disruptions in the school year so far (exhibit A: evil dictator with evil cold), no way I could have held together a formal curriculum if it relied 100% on my willpower alone.

Some comments on specific subjects:

Latin: Mr. Boy is doing the first year of New Missal Latin.  I like it pretty well.  Like the kolbe-published supplemental resources.  Will say this: In my opinion, the teaching parent needs to either have a smattering of Latin under the belt, or be ready to learn-along.  Having already done the intro to classical Latin in previous years, these first few weeks have been largely review for Boy & myself, and yes that is very nice.  Now is not my time to be learning a new language.  No really.  Sometimes it is not that time.

(Remind me also I have some other comments on this particular Latin program and the pro’s and con’s.  For a post another day.)

Grammar:  No shock here, I’m one of ten people in the known universe who actually likes Voyages in English.  So far, no difficulties.  Definitely if you haven’t diagrammed sentences before, you want the intro to diagramming booklet as a supplement.

Composition: I failed to observe that there is a separate composition book for 6th grade in addition to the vocabulary and grammar books.  Kolbe plans call for one assignment a week from that book.  I’d already maxed out the book budget.  So I typed up 36 composition assignments for the Boy, and stuck those in his plan book.  Conveniently, 6th graders do not use the composition portion of VOE, so I borrowed from there.

Spelling / Vocabulary:  The kids hate this.  Lot of work.  I keep reminding them that a good PSAT / SAT score is worth cold hard cash.    They get that.  We’ve used Spelling Power in the past, and have good results with using that study method for studying the words missed on the pre-test.   The whole amount of Kolbe-assigned words is a lot, though.  And we’ve had a couple weeks with enough disruptions that I couldn’t keep up my end on this one through the whole week.  We just move on to the next week, rather than piling up.

Word Study:  Oh, yeah, and word study.  Gee these children get a LOT of language arts.  They tell me this one is easy (MCP Plaid).  It is also good for them.  Happy there.  Decided this was one workbook the kids could write their answers in, would be a royal pain to have to do the assignments on a separate page.

Geography:  Lovin’ the geography books.  Short, easy assignments, genuinely useful map skills.  Makes me happy.

Religion: Of course I like it (Faith & Life), I was already using it anyway.  This is the other activity book I let the kids write in.  Pretty happy with the addition of the St. J’s Balt. Catechisms as well, serious retro power going on there.  My DRE also likes the program.    She’s experimenting with one section of F&L for 8th grade CCD this year.  (Rest of us are using our same Loyola Press books from previous years.  Which are fine.  But I’d still make my kids do F&L at home.)

Science:  Not a demanding program, which works for me.  We skip the Monday “investigation” every week, so far there hasn’t been one worth the hassle.  Also, I have the workbooks but the course plans don’t call for them, and both kids have decided we are happier not doing them.  I’m good with having them do just the textbook reading and review questions, and they can unschool any other science they desire. I like that balance.  [Recall: Two real microscopes in my living room.  Engineer at the dinner table every night.  Unschooling science is a viable option.]

Literature:  Um, where are the study questions? Apparently they are in some other place than the course plans.  I guess a Kolbe booklet I was supposed to buy?   For the uninitiated: You acquire the book you are studying — White Fang and Misty of Chincoteague to start, for us — and then the course plans give you chapter reading assignments and a weekly short essay to write, book report at the end.  And those plans also mention these “study questions” and “vocabulary” and stuff.  But they aren’t in the plans.    And no, I can’t be bothered to go look back at the Kolbe catalog, nor to post a question on the Kolbe forums.  Because, um, my magic pen of you-don’t-have-to-do-this works great!  I just cross out assignments!  We love it!

–> As a result: I let the girl take her final exam open-book and open-dictionary (Misty only takes 5 weeks), since it would be requiring her to have memorized study questions she’d never seen.  Flipped around the final week course plans to have her do the exam first and write the book report second.

Math: Not using Saxon.  Nothing against it.  We’re just still happy with Math-U-See, didn’t see a reason to switch when that was already working. 

History: Recall everyone’s doing Rome this year, which would ordinarily be the 5th grade course.  Very happy both with using the program as written for Mr. Boy, and subbing in History Pockets for the first two quarters for the girl.  Not much else to say.  The Kolbe-recommended course is very good.  And one of my children really needed to meet Ancient Rome in a perkier manner.

[But yes, I had to pick up a library book on the Aztecs, because HP fails to mention the, er, human sacrifice, those amazing wonderful ancient Aztecs were practicing during the European renaissance.  Yeah, I’m a western culture snob.  Facts are facts.  I vote for the no-live-beating-human-hearts-in-the-hands-of-the-priest every time.  Give me self-flagellating, slightly sore-backed penitents over flayed-alive sacrificial victims any day.]

Funny story though: We’re planning to go see our local Roman legion when they gather not so far from us in November.  Except the girls only want to go if they get to dress up.  So a certain growing 4th grader is going to be let loose with some discount linen between now and then.  Luckily the rest of us already own passable garb that still fits.

Immersed.

There’s a blog in my head that is chock full of posts.  A few of them will soon escape into the internet. 

Working on a booklet for catechists, and have gotten some good feedback and helpful edits from my beta-readers.  I would like to point out that if you ever write something really stupid, Dorian Speed has your back.  THANK YOU DORIAN.  Also got my first back-cover blurb quote, from Sarah Reinhard:  “I NEED this book.” Heartening, very heartening.

 

This week on the calendar:

School.  It’s going well.  Yay!

First Night of CCD. This Wednesday.  Wrote up class plans today.  Need to get the classroom set up and materials in order.  Stoked about my new helper / co-catechist, think it’s going to be a good match for the class.

Edits.  Turning booklet from a 2nd draft into a 3rd draft, with help from some kind readers.  Hope to have that done by the end of the week, and ready to send to the next set of readers.

Theology of the Body for Teens book review.  Am plugging through that, really liking what I see.  Top notch so far.  My DRE is being very patient with me as I take forever to finish reading and previewing; I think mostly because buying it herself is not in the budget, so she’s scrambling to see what other parish wants to lend us materials.  Thank you Catholic Company for helping keep the budget under control.

Ever heard of Dan Castell? He’s making us laugh.  Mr. Boy is happily plowing through a draft manuscript as a beta-reader, and not just because I’ll excuse him from a week of National Catholic Reader assignments.   Dr. Boli fans should watch this space.  Some day I don’t know when, a finished work will emerge from Dan’s writing cave.  Good stuff.  Real gift for repartee.

And then all the usual stuff like cooking and cleaning and driving children places and gee, wow, laundry.  I think maybe changing clothes is overrated.

Homeschool Photos Episode 1: Organization

Now for the personal tour, divided up by theme.  We are five days down, 175 to go, so homeschooling is pretty much all I think about right now.  I am not a naturally organized person, but through a series of miracles, I think I finally have something that works.  This is what it looks like.

 

Command Central

1.  This is my office.  Those shelves contain my books, including course plans not in use and all the solutions manuals.  Also contains school books that I don’t want kids getting into, either because of replacement cost or a very-PG rating.

Squint at the desk on the right, and you’ll see this:

My brain.

 

It took me, oh, you know maybe TWENTY YEARS to figure out I needed a desk-top file box.   There’s a file in there for any kinds of papers I need to either access quickly or file frequently: phone number lists, activity calendars, kids’ current-year school portfolios, and an assortment of other odds and ends for me personally.  (SuperHusband gets the other desk.)

The bulletin board behind the desk is for near-term papers I need in my face.  Last week it held a copy of the girls’ party invitation.  Right now it has the announcement for the local catechist training seminar coming up.  I like it empty.

Sitting on the desk is my personal calendar, week-at-glance.  I take it with me whereever I go, or else I am very very sorry I did not.  (Did I lose your phone number that you wrote on the church bulletin? See?  I should have brought the pink book.)  Also, I always regret it if I don’t look at the calender every morning.  But a lot of mornings I don’t.  And then I regret it.

The public end of my brain.

3. This is the freezer door, and behind it lie the wonders of science.  But on the surface is the more pressing homeschooling need, the calendars everyone else looks at.  I put the week’s activities on the dry-erase board, and then use empty squares to write in items for the grocery list as needs are made known.

[I used to keep this on the wall behind my desk.  And I never used it, because it was awkward to write on.  Then I saw one just like it at my friend Judy’s house, only she used hers.  Because it was on her freezer.]

The tiny strip of bulletin board holds up a monthly calendar, which I update every now and again when we need to figure out whether we are free for this or that.  It also holds important papers such as the list of meals for the week (torn off from the paper grocery list I took to the store), and the list of lost homebrewing supplies we would dearly like to find again.  Behind the monthly calendar, on their own tacks, are the church youth group activity calendar and the altar-server  schedule, since both of those I need to actually look at pretty often.

Also on the freezer is a little metal organizer that holds dry-erase markers, the dog’s thyroid medicine, and bills that need to be paid.  [All the other pet meds are on top of the freezer, and I finally got smart today and put them in a big ziplock bag so they wouldn’t fall off the freezer and dissappear forever.  They could still fall off, but they’ll do it in giant blob that won’t slip into the dusty communal grave of Things That Got Kicked Under the Fridge.]

The Land of Books We Need Right Now.

4.  This year I made a little zone in the living room for all the kids’ current-year school books.   So they are all in one place.  In previous years I let certain children keep their books on their desks in their rooms.  Bad idea.   Recipe for lost books.

On the top shelf you see a milk crate for each big kid.  All their books plus a binder with the quarter’s course plans, daily grading sheet, and a dry-erasable daily checklist they can choose to use or not, go in that box.  Nearby (you’ll see it in a future episode maybe) is the chair where I sit to issue and grade homework.  A kid stands by that chair and delivers to me the book & work I request, and puts back what I’m done with.    So far, 5 days into the year, that process is working great, except that I need to make a box for the solutions manuals so I can haul them into the living room with me.  It turns out I don’t actually know that much Latin.

Top shelf of the wooden bookcase contains library books, a box with blank penmanship worksheets (kids just choose whatever they want for that day from what is in the box — they all write about the same, I know), and the five-year-old’s “workbox”.  That means her basket of activity books to do school-y stuff with when she is bored waiting on me to work with her.

Middle shelf has two little girls’ real school books, plus frequently-referenced extra books, like the dictionary.  And whatever else the kids randomly put away there.

Bottom shelf has the 2nd grader’s workbox and more related-but-not-required books.  All kids are studying Ancient Rome / Ancient Civilizations, so those types of books from our family library are there right now, and American History (so last year) are off on a different set of shelves elsewhere.

To left of the shelves are the Math Drawers.  Bottom drawer contains math activities (thank you Laura B.!), top drawer contains upper-grades math manipulatives for fractions and algebra.  Or something.  The big box on the top has containers with little Units and Tens blocks, and then a stack of Hundreds blocks.  Except that everyone seems to be doing math in my bedroom, which means many of the blocks have now found a home on top of the old ice chest by my bedroom door.

Way up on top of the milk crates are the good school books that the kids don’t need yet, but belong in the pile of current-year books, and I don’t want anybody touching them.  But I want to remember where they are, because soon, very soon, some child will need them.

Counting Down

We start school in 1 week.  Consider light blogging an auspicious sign.  For example that maybe I have embraced a life of responsibility and self-discipline for a change.  Try not to think about it.

Busy Mothers

It is my firm belief that I have finally caught up on all my e-mail.  Which means if you are still waiting for a reply from me, um, maybe you could pester me one more time?

But I haven’t looked at every single facebook thing, which means I might be missing out on  links like this one:

 

A girl neglects facebook at great peril.

White Fang Update

I’ve learned a useful writing tip:  If you have a really whiny character, go ahead and let the wolves eat that one.  Your readers will thank you.

Except now I’m kinda rooting for the wolves.

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PS: Our dog is doing GREAT.  Completely better.  Hurray hurray hurray.  We seriously thought we were going to have a dead dog by the end of the week.  And now she’s fine.  Perfectly normal happy dog.  Yay veterinarians.  Yipee yay yay.