Follow-up to previous

So I just switched over the Blogger Beta; we'll see how this goes. It offered all sorts of new templates, which I anxiously browsed... and then decided I still like what I have the best. All the others are boxy. The header, the links, the archives, all get their own box. I guess that could be considered a neat, clean style, but I find it cold and business-like. I rather like this brown parchment look with no dividers. On the upside, Blogger Beta uploads images without locking up, a huge plus!

At any rate, part of the regrouping I was talking about was taking a week off to do nothing. Since we homeschool year-round, we alternate a week of vacation after every three weeks of school (with two weeks off twice a year). Usually these weeks off are busier than school weeks, especially when trips to Chicago are involved. So last week for vacation I determined we would do nothing at all. We would stay home and just hang out. Because lately the only time I spend with them is school time, and I'm in danger of being more teacher than Mom.

The boys had been bugging me for a while to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender with them. I've gotten to see an episode here or there, but they wanted me to watch all of season one. So that's what we did first. It really is a very good show; I would have absolutely adored it if it had been on when I was a kid. The "benders" are people who use magic based on the four elements: air, fire, water, and earth. The way they use this magic is by doing kung fu forms (different styles for each element; there's a special feature on the DVD where the master who does their choreography breaks down which is which, very cool if you're into martial arts). That would be enough to get me interested, but it also has some of my favorite features of TV shows: a running story line in which characters undergo permanent changes (watch as they learn skills, there's a definite arc in their abilities), characters that don't fit neatly into "good" and "evil" boxes, and strong female characters. The animation is top-notch too. (And the fact that season one ends with a big fight at the North Pole... well, you know I'm into that).

So that's what they shared with me. For my part, I picked movies from my childhood which they've never seen (although we've owned the DVDs for donkey years; they tend to pick the same things over and over again).

I started out with UHF starring "Weird Al" Yankovic. They're big fans of his music and especially his videos, but they didn't really care for the movie. Odd, since I still think it's hilarious. "Badgers? Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' badgers?!?'

On second thought, it's possible that most of the pop culture references went over their heads. They've never even seen the Beverly Hillbillies.

I also tried Legend on them, but they didn't care for it much either. I love it, flying pollen and all, but it is a bit slow. They didn't hate it, but their response was definitely tepid.



Next up was The Never-Ending Story. I confess, I've never been wildly enthusiastic about this movie. The racing snail is the only element I find cool in any way (and the only female character spends the entire movie up in a tower waiting for other people to do things for her - ugh). But I can see what draws other people to it. This was their favorite of everything we watched. Oliver in particular scarcely paused for breath when he was telling Dad all about it.

I find it a bit ironic, the bookstore owner who gives the book to Bastien is very disdainful of videogames. I wonder what he'd think about games like Final Fantasy, which are really like novels you inhabit with story lines (and alternate story lines depending upon how you choose to respond to the other characters). We've come a long way since Space Invaders.

We rounded out the week with a movie I still love: The Goonies. That first novel I wrote when I was 16 was influenced as much by this movie as by The Lord of the Rings (and if you think the two can't mix... well, there's a reason that novel is in the basement now). The female characters are subpar (and not really part of the group anyway), but the booby traps and pirate treasure are so cool I can forgive the film makers for not making any girl Goonies. Plus I love that Cyndi Lauper song. Something I noticed for the first time, the older brother sounds just like John C. Reilly. He clearly isn't, but particularly when he was off frame or had his back to the camera it was uncanny.

We did have a day where whatever we were watching wrapped up short of nap time, so we watched a little SpongeBob on TV. With commercials, which we almost never do (not with me in the room, anyway). We saw one for a talking baby doll which says, "I love you more than bunnies!"

"What did that baby say?" I ask.
"I love you more than bunnies," Adain says.
"What does that mean? Does it mean I love you more than I love bunnies, or does it mean I love you more than bunnies love you?"
"Mom, you're just weird."

(This has become our new good night ritual for Oliver and me. It used to be "Boba Fett fits in this spaceship right here", which came from a conversation like this:

"Good night, Oliver."
"Do you see this? This is Boba Fett's backpack. And this is his gun..."
"I'll see you in the morning."
"...and he can fly with his jetpack..."
"I love you."
"...and Boba Fett fits in this spaceship right here!"

So at the end of the night instead of "I love you" I'd say "Boba Fett fits in this spaceship right here!"since apparently it means the same thing, right? But Oliver has sworn he will always listen to what I'm saying and give appropriate responses if I would please, please stop saying that. So now I say, "Good night, Oliver. I love you more than bunnies". We can work it up to an hysterical pitch. "Don't trust the bunnies! Don't listen to them! They say they love you, but I love you more than bunnies!!!"

I wonder what that doll is trying to say. Maybe it's spy code.)

Back to watching SpongeBob. Since I'm incapable of watching TV without doing something productive at the same time, I was working on their Christmas sweaters. I was counting stitches (tends to absorb my attention) when Oliver suddenly shouts (clearly upset): "GIVE IT BACK TO THE WITCH!!!" It made me jump.

"Oliver! What are you talking about?"
"He's talking to the TV," Aidan says (with that big brother, I-always-have-to-put-up-with-this-behaviour air). I glance up at the TV. We're watching a Lucky Charms commercial.
"Dude? That's a leprechaun. Not a witch."

But that pretty much sums up why we own so many DVDs. Commercials are just too disturbing.

I'm not wigging. What, you think I'm wigging? This is hang time. I'm just... I'm just regrouping.

For some time now I've been letting a lot of things slide, promising myself to take care of it when I wasn't doing so many extra hours for work. I've finally had to admit to myself that I'm not going to not be busy until I'm replaced by a machine. I haven't blogged much lately because I've been regrouping.

Most of the changes were how I homeschool. There are as many ways to homeschool your kids as there are people homeschooling; everything from buying a boxed curriculum that covers all subjects with teachers you mail assignments and tests to for grading (way too constrictive for me) to "unschoolers" who spend the day finding "teachable moments" and have no curriculum at all (definitely not for me). I fall somewhere in the middle: we use Saxon for math, and that comes in a box (it even has a script for what I'm supposed to say, but I've never used that). I've picked and choosed the books I use for spelling and grammar and writing. But up until this point I've been creating Aidan's history and science curriculum myself. We have encylopedias and tons of books, of course, but I've been writing up lesson plans, deciding when we are going to study what topics, what activities we're going to do, etc.

Guess what I gave up for the sake of regrouping? It was a tough decision; I enjoy doing these planning things. I've finally had to admit after four months of no history and very little science that I just don't have the time and won't have the time as far into the future as I can see. So I broke down and bought a history curriculum. It's not really school-in-a-box, it actually uses the encyclopedias and books I already have. It just does the coordinating and sequencing of lessons for me, and each unit has a list of recommended books we can find at the library, which saves me the searching. Plus it comes with maps to color in, so it ties geography in with the history. I am, however, still doing the science myself. I can't give up all control.

The other thing I had to admit was there was never going to be a convenient time for Aidan to take piano lessons; our days are too packed with activities. I had intended for him to start at 7; he's nearly 9. Plus, they're really expensive. I've mentioned his love of Rosetta Stone for Latin; learning on the computer without Mom is the coolest (apparently), so I got on Ebay and bid my little heart out until I managed to win a MIDI keyboard and piano software. Not the same as a real teacher, certainly, but if he likes it and commits to practicing everyday we'll revisit the whole lessons thing.

I haven't written a word in the WIP since August. I read this post on Jane Espenson's blog about a cardigan and an echidna (this will make more sense if you read Jane's blog), and it occurred to me that that is my problem. Except I'm not sure which is my cardigan and which is my echidna. I came *this close* to taking the scissors to the whole thing when my husband suggested I try working on something else for a while and see if I still felt the same way later (what I'm thinking is that the story needs to be nonlinear: whether it starts in the middle, flashes back, and flashes forward, or alternate past and future chapters, or even (ugh) has a prologue, something along those lines is what I'm thinking).

So I'm working on a story for an anthology, Sails and Sorcery. I had the beginning and the ending, but no middle (which, for the theme, would have to involve ships). Somehow (I'm honestly not sure how, I think I was writing in a fugue state. Did I mention the chronic exhaustion?) the middle of the story ended up in the Arctic. I think I'm in danger of self-parody. And yet I'm in love with it, it all just flows. I haven't written anything I've liked this much since "Tale of a Fox". I haven't written anything that was so slow in the writing since Fox either; I've been lucky to eek out 300 words a day. But I've been dreaming of my own scenes. I've never had that happen before; I hope that means it's good (and not that I'm, you know, going nuts).