Extreme Home Makeover, WHERE ARE YOU?

Aaaaaand...I'm back.  Hi.  Missed me?  Of course you did.  I've missed me.  It's been a crazy six months since the baby arrived.  It's still crazy, but I think it's getting easier to keep my head above water, so to speak.  We are officially a couple or three weeks into the new school year..and other than a crappy first day, spent sleep deprived and with sick children, I think we're doing okay.  The academics are going fine, but I find myself feeling frustrated and agitated by my surroundings.  It is a PIT here.  And this is AFTER I spent the summer de-junking and attempting to reorganize.

You are now forewarned that this is as much a wish list post as anything else.

Here's how it works right now.  The kids work on schoolwork all over the house.  We used to sit at the kitchen table for everything that didn't involve using the computer--but since the baby was born, I've had to have the kids come sit by me on the couch while I nurse.  Or the kids will sprawl out on the floor in whatever room hasn't been taken over by laundry or siblings.  There are stacks of books, papers, school supplies, scratch paper, half finished projects, and who knows what else on every available horizontal surface.  And it's making me crazy.

My first attempt to control it all was to buy more bookshelves.  Unfortunately, this just created more horizontal space to stack stuff on.  Then I tried more shelves with fabric BINS.  But now we can't see anything, so we forget we have eight pairs of scissors and sixty different kinds of glue.  Sigh.  I need a better system.  And while we're at it--

I need pretty.  Seriously.  I am so tired of cheap plastic bins and plywood furniture, white walls, piles of junk, and dilapidated vertical blinds.  Actually, aside from pretty, I need more space--we are pretty cramped in our little dollhouse. But, since gaining more space isn't going to happen anytime soon, I need functionality and I need PRETTY.

I don't exactly know how to accomplish these things, so I'm going to use this post to think, uh, aloud.

Curtains.  The family room faces east, so we get a lot of sun during the morning.  Vertical blinds suck--we've had them for years and they have become brittle and pretty useless.  I need sheer curtains for daytime--something to let in light without blinding us--but I need another layer of something heavy and not see through so we don't look like a lighted aquarium from the outside at night.

Wall color.  I love orange.  I am dying to paint something bright, eye-popping orange.  The whole room is probably overkill, so an accent wall--but which wall?  I also like blue--that Martha Stewart pale aqua color is pretty awesome--but it kind of doesn't go with orange.  I also like bright pink--somewhere between magenta and Pepto-Bismol....hmmm....

Mirrors--depth for the narrow rooms! (But it will reflect all the clutter--double the clutter?!!?!?! NOOOO!!!!)

Storage.  Pardon me while I collapse on the floor and weep, wail, and gnash my teeth.  We have zero storage in this house and I have no idea how to create any without making us feel like the house is coming down on us from all sides.

Elegance.  Okay, with Pepto-Bismol pink and bright orange, I don't know if this is possible--but I like clean lines and not a lot of doodads and gew-gaws to deal with.  But I hate the minimalist/modern look.  I like a place to look lived in and personal.

Light fixtures.  I hate my light fixtures--all of them.  They either collect tons of dust or they are shaped like boobs.  Ugh.  But what do I replace them with?  I don't have room for end tables and lamps.

I seriously want to call that Nate Berkus guy, or one of those other home makeover shows and say--"I have a challenge for you!" and then show them this place.  I can imagine the designers talking to me about what my passions and goals are, asking me about our lifestyle, and then having them pick out the fact that I like bright colors, I like cushy, kid friendly furniture, but I like elegance, too.  And then I picture them working their magic.  But when I picture the big UNVEIL--after I get past the scene of me uncovering my eyes and hopping up and down squealing in gleeful disbelief and gratitude and hugging and possibly smooching the designer, I see---nothing.

I guess I"ll have to figure out my own design stuff...hmmm.  Gonna go stare at the walls for a bit.

Math and a melodramatic post about how much I hate it.

Is it possible to start a post with a belly-ripping, headache-inducing scream? Because that’s what I want to do right now. I HATE math. And even more than hating math, I HATE TEACHING MATH.  (Excuse me while I breathe into a paper bag for a minute.)
Maybe it’s because I have a long and humiliating history with the subject. In the first grade, I was asked, in front of the whole class, to “count by ones.”  We had just gone over skip counting by 2s and 5s and 10s, so you’d think I’d have had this in the bag.  But, I was a shy, dreamy little kid, still trying to wrap my head around skip counting and had never heard of “counting by ones.”  Either you COUNTED “1,2,3,4…” or you SKIP COUNTED. I was not familiar with the term “counting by ones” and told the teacher I didn’t know how.  She gave me a “You are such a little sh@#.” look and then asked another student to “show Marissa how to count by ones…” The kid then proceeded to sneer at me, emphasizing how dumb she thought I was with each number, “One. (Moron!) Two. (Dork!) Three. (Stupid!) Four. (Dummy!) Five…” 
Duh.
After that, I mentally checked out of math class and never returned.  My worst nightmares aren’t about losing a loved one or being chased by bogey men—it’s of having to go to a math class.
So how does this translate to homeschooling?  A lot of hyperventilating went into my lesson planning.  I finally turned math over to a computer program called ALEKS, which absolves me of most of the work involved in teaching.  But, sometimes my kids still struggle with a concept and don’t understand the explanations and examples the ALEKS program offers and I have to step in.  Did you know there is a huge difference between knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach it?
A typical teaching session goes something like this:
Me: (demonstrating a math problem) So that’s how you do it.
Kid: Why?
Me: Here, let me show you another example (demonstrating again).  See?
Kid: Um, no.  What?
Me: Okay, well, you carry the…wait, move this here..then carry the..oh, dammit.  Class dismissed.
Kid: Yay!
Have I mentioned I hate math?  I don’t want to hate it.  In fact, I kind of got a taste of the beauty of math when I stumbled across this scene from the crime drama Numb3rs:

“Math is nature’s language; its method of communicating directly with us. Everything is numbers…”
Wow.  That is SO cool!  I remind myself of this constantly, because I really don’t want to hate math.  I want to love it, and I want my kids to love it—for the very reasons brought up in the video clip.  Unfortunately, I have yet to work through my deep seated issues with math, so I’m turning over the teaching in this department to my husband (who was a math minor in college.)
More on my epic math phobias later.  It’s time to bust out some grammar!

Sing Your Heart Out

Do you know of the grammy winning musical group from South Africa, Ladysmith Black Mambazo? I first heard them in junior high, when a substitute teacher in my choir class had us watch a film called “Spike Lee’s Do It A Capella.”  The movie showcased a number of a capella groups—all of them dynamic, all of them talented.  Among them, the most fascinating to me was Ladysmith Black Mambazo.  I loved their deep, tribal harmonies and exotic sound. I loved the story of their name. I followed their career through the years—loving their collaborations with everyone from Paul Simon to Disney.  I fancied myself a singer as a kid and I had this fantasy of going professional and performing with Ladysmith in something like this. I bought the Do It A capella soundtrack and memorized all the songs—trying to pick out various parts. “Someday,” I thought, “I am going to sing with Ladysmith Black Mambazo!”
As the years passed, my interests and focus changed.  I would not become a professional singer, and that was okay.  I got on with life, went to college, and studied the Humanities. I got married. I had a bunch of kids.  I took up scrapbooking and knitting. But every time I listened to the Do It A Capella soundtrack, I’d indulge in the childish fantasy of singing with Ladysmith. 
And then—I heard they were coming to perform in Nampa, Idaho.  I was thrilled (and surprised they’d be coming to such a podunk town in Idaho in the first place.)  There was NO WAY I was going to miss their performance. My hubby bought tickets and I jabbered to him the whole way over to the event about how much I had loved Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s music as a kid, and how I had always wanted to sing with them and how excited I was to see them in person in what was practically my back yard.
We sat in the center of the fourth to last row in the small auditorium of the Nampa Civic Center.  I always like to look around at the audience when I go to concerts, and in this case, I was very curious to see who else would attend a Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert.  It was full of stuffy older people, whispering back and forth what they thought they knew about Ladysmith and full of themselves for coming to a “cultural event.” I wondered if I was the only genuine fan in the audience.

When the music started, I was practically bouncing out of my seat.  The singers encouraged the audience to clap out rhythms with them and participate in the call and response songs.  Surely, this was heaven!  But to the singers’ frustration (and mine) the audience remained reserved in their participation.  I think I was the loudest clapper and responder in the bunch—much to the chagrin of the people around me.  I felt the pressure to sit quietly, and began to hold back.  I became agitated.  I really wanted to participate, but because of what I perceived as disapproval from the people surrounding me, I felt I had to stifle my enthusiasm.
Then, the singers began a song, inviting people from the audience to join them onstage.  A couple of the singers left the stage to hand pick people from the audience out of the front row.  I was desperately jealous of and excited for the people the singers were trying to engage. The singers weren’t having much luck convincing people to come up.  Soon, I was disappointed and embarrassed to see that most of the people opted to remain seated.  When the singers realized they weren’t going to get the adults to join them, they turned to recruiting kids—and finally got a couple of them up as they got into their song.  Throughout the song, the singers continued trying to get folks to join them, moving to the edges of the third, fourth, and even fifth rows!  I kept whispering fiercely to my husband that I wanted to go up.  Here was my chance—here was my fantasy realized—I could really go up there and SING with my favorite musical group!  He encouraged me to go, practically pushing me out of my seat.  But by then, the song was nearly over and I would have had to climb over fifteen people, run up ten rows or so, and climb onstage.  I would have looked really stupid and I would have annoyed the people I had to climb over. I would have caused a bit of a ruckus.  What would they have thought of me?
So I stayed put. It killed me, but I couldn’t find the nerve to go up there.  When the song ended, the singers helped the two kids and the one adult couple that eventually joined them back to their seats.  I kept thinking that if they asked for volunteers to go up on stage again, I’d do it and to hell with the people that might get annoyed as I barreled up to the stage.  But, the singers didn’t recruit any more people.  They finished out their concert, and the curtain closed.  I had missed my opportunity.  I left what had been an amazing performance not elated and uplifted by the singers, but dejected and disappointed in myself.  I had let fear of what others might think prevent me from fulfilling my dream.  It had been quite literally within my grasp, and I had not seized it.
On the way home, I tried to mollify myself.  There were a couple of call and response songs that the group had gotten the entire audience involved in.  I had sung with the crowd when directed to, so technically, I had sung with Ladysmith Black Mambazo.  But repeating a few choruses with a reluctant audience wasn’t the same as going up on stage, joining the beckoning singers, and singing my soul out.
I’ve thought a lot about that experience over the last couple of years.  How many times have I had an opportunity to do something great, to be a part of something phenomenal, to do a bit of good, but not taken part because of fear of what others would think, or fear of my own inadequacy? And what have I ever gained from hanging back, not plunging in to something I’m passionate about? I vowed I would never let fear best me again and prevent me from fulfilling my dreams, because living in fear is not living at all.
When dreams call, grasp the hand of opportunity, regardless of fear, and sing your heart out.

A Life Lesson, as brought to you by my husband

Back in April 2010, my husband went in for a routine physical and was told by his doctor that his blood pressure was high and he needed to lose weight because he was at risk for a heart attack (among other things.)  The doc wanted to see him back in three months.  If my husband hadn’t improved, he’d have to start taking blood pressure medication.
For about two weeks following his appointment, my husband tried to exercise—but then life got in the way; we went on vacation, he got a head cold, he got busy at work, the kids wanted his attention, his church callings took up too much time.  I worried about his health, but not wanting to nag my man about his eating habits and lack of exercise, I didn’t say anything. (If I had, it would have been the pot calling the kettle black!)  Soon, three months were past, and it was time for his follow up appointment.
This time, my husband’s blood pressure was worse.  The doctor actually told him he was a “ticking time bomb” and “going to have a heart attack.”  He wrote out a prescription for BP medicine.  My husband was horrified and declared he would try again to lose weight, if the doctor would just give him another three months. The doctor, highly skeptical, called my husband out on the carpet.  “You’ve had three months to get this under control and you haven’t,” he said.  “What makes you think you’re going to do it now?”  My husband asked how long he’d have to be on the medicine if he started taking it.  The doctor said, “Probably for the rest of your life.”  My husband looked the doc in the eye and said, “I don’t want to have to rely on that medicine to stay alive.  I WILL get healthy the right way.  Give me three more months and let me prove it to you.”
The doctor was still skeptical, but turned my husband loose, without the prescription.
Long story short, my husband has spent the last nine months proving he could get himself healthy.  He’s lost 60 pounds and is now within ten pounds of his target weight.  His blood pressure is now normal, his risk for a heart attack and stroke down to practically zero.  This man is a lean machine.

Over the last few months, people have noticed him getting smaller and leaner. He’s been approached by men and women who tell him he looks like his weight has just “melted off.”  He’s been told, in tones of awe and envy, that he looks like he’s “wasting away.”  Some of our elderly friends have even expressed concern that he might be ill, because he’s so thin.  Some folks have insisted that he STOP losing weight because “You’re small enough now.”  He’s been asked what magic pill he’s taking, what diet he’s on, how he’s “magically” managed to lose so much weight.  People want to know:  “What’s his secret?”
No one believes him when he tells them. They actually laugh at him.  But, I know his secret, too.  It IS unbelievable.  Want me to tell you?  Are you ready?  Okay, here it is.  My husband’s secret for weight loss success is------DAMN. HARD. WORK.
He started by joining our local “corner” gym—it’s a small place, open 24/7, membership fee: 20 bucks a month.  Next, he hired a personal trainer for six sessions to help him come up with a game plan and some goals, and to keep him on track long enough to get into the habit of working out on his own.  The trainer weighed and measured my husband, wrote out an exercise plan for him, and introduced him to a health and fitness website: www.livestrong.com to help him track his progress.  Then the real work began.
My husband has, for nine months, consistently spent an hour to an hour and a half at the gym, or out cycling, five OR six days a week. He is still as busy as ever with work, family, and church responsibilities, but now he MAKES TIME for fitness.  More often than not, he gets up at 5 AM to go work out. Occasionally, he’ll skip the gym, and take in an evening kickboxing class, or play as a substitute in an indoor soccer league. The big realization here: You make time for the things that are truly important to you.
He has learned to count calories and for the first three months of his serious endeavor to get healthy, measured EVERY morsel of food that went into his mouth.  He was already eating fairly healthy foods, just MORE than was strictly necessary—so, he had to learn portion control.  And, admittedly, he did change some of his food choices.  He now eats high fiber cereal, and tosses in a bit of protein powder in with a fruit smoothie.  He eats a lot more salads and veggies.  At restaurants, he generally chooses lower calorie entrees.  But, he doesn’t shy away from the occasional donut or slice or two of pizza.
All this has been very hard.  He got tired.  He got sore.  He was often hungry, initially. He’d get sick and want to quit.  Three or four times, he’s had to take as much as two weeks off, to recover from injuries, or illness, or other life events.  But he keeps getting back up, and keeps going to the gym.  And he keeps watching what he eats and tracking his progress on the website.
To the untrained eye, my husband’s weight appears to have “melted off.”  But if it’s melted off, it’s melted off with gallons of sweat from hours and hours and HOURS of damn hard work, physically and mentally.  This brings me to the “life lesson” mentioned in the title of this post.



I hear a lot of parents telling their kids “You can be anything you want to be.  You can be successful at anything you put your mind to.”  I believe this.  But I also believe that when we say these kinds of things, we have a tendency to leave out the critical part---“if you’re willing to work your arse off to get it.” Consequently, our encouragement to our kids sounds vague and abstract, and the kids develop the belief that if they wish or dream something hard enough, it will come to pass. 
In my experience, hoping and wishing and even dedicated thought don’t usually work by themselves.  But—work will win when wishing won’t.  Whether you’re trying to lose weight or you want to learn to speak Russian or play the violin—it’s the WORK that gets you there.  And the harder you work, the better you’ll do.  We tend to want to look at people who have accomplished much and think they’re just lucky or unusually talented.  Luck and innate ability may lend themselves to success, but real, lasting success in any endeavor requires a whole lot of old fashioned, uncomfortable, gritty WORK.  Take it from one who knows. 
I’m proud of you, my man!

Burnout: Part Deux

I was hoping to be able to post all the awesome stuff I gathered from the Mother’s Meeting that I had anticipated in my last post.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of awesome advice about what to do about feeling burnt out.  Most of the moms who attended this time are mothers to older kids and teenagers---the big topic of the night ended up being about how to motivate their older kids to take their education into their own hands—so there’d be less nagging on mom’s part.
I suppose I should have paid better attention, so when my kids are pre-teens and teens, I’ll have some ideas, but I was just sort of disappointed that we weren’t going to talk about dealing with the homeschool blahs. 
At the end of the meeting, however, I threw my concerns out and asked for advice.  One mom of ten told me that my feelings of burn out and disinterest will pass—probably well after my baby is born, and that if my other kids didn’t get any formal academics for six months to a year, they’d still turn out okay.  It sounds kind of flippant to write it here, but I was actually comforted by that statement.  This mom of ten is a woman I consider my homeschooling and parenting mentor.  She’s given me a lot of practical advice since before I started homeschooling, so I trust her.  She’s also got a very wry sense of humor and isn’t one of those Pollyanna types that tries to gloss over the hard stuff.  She’s upbeat, don’t get me wrong, but she’s very REAL about her triumphs and failures.
So, I’ve been giving it some thought.  Six months with no school?  A year?  For real? We haven’t done any formal academics for about six weeks.  I have a baby coming sometime (God willing) in the next week, and I can’t imagine I’m going to feel up to hitting the books really hard for at least a few weeks after that.  I don’t want to whine or anything, but I’m feeling pretty miserable physically.  Standing hurts, walking hurts, bending over is nigh unto impossible—I’m exhausted after taking a shower and getting dressed.  So, I’ve been doing a lot of just sitting around.  I’m too tired to read, I just fall asleep—so yes—I have resorted to letting the kids entertain themselves with the TV and with the Wii.
But, I have discovered that the kids can only tolerate so much of that before they are restless and discontent.  They are brunt out on burnout.
  For the last few days, They’ve been asking me what we’re going to do today.  Something?  Anything? So I’ve given them chores.  I’ve let them cook (yikes!)  I’ve let them get out whatever messy craft project they want.  And, as I’ve watched them discover the satisfaction and order of a cleaned room, the joys of a successful cooking experience, or the lesson in perseverance when the project doesn’t turn out they they were hoping initially, I’ve begun to feel a glimmer of motivation and interest.
A spark of Phoenix fire.  But that’s the next post.

Burnout!

Oh yes, it has arrived. I admit, here and now, I have entered the Apathy Stage.  Revel in it with me for a moment.  The entire household has been down for the last couple of weeks with intermittent occurrences of head-colds, stomach bugs, and in my case, epic pregnancy-induced heartburn.  For the last little bit we’ve been foraging instead of having regular meals, living off saltine crackers and suspicious looking leftovers.  Dishes and laundry are piling up. Half my kids have been running around in pajamas, the other half, undies and T shirts that haven’t been changed in a few days.  I think I’m the only one who has bothered to shower in nearly a week.  I may not feel good, but I insist on smelling good.  As for the others, I’ve ordered them to stay downwind. 
We (but especially me) are officially suffering from burnout.  With everything.  School, chores, church, interpersonal communication, hygiene…(I warned you I was keeping things real here.) Even TV has lost it’s mind-numbing charm.  Consequently, the house is in chaos and the bickering between the kids has increased.  I’ve been tempted to put hazard tape up across the front door. It is NOT pretty here.
However, before I’ve completely depressed you, I will say that I know this is temporary.  I know as soon as I start feeling better, things will improve, by virtue of the fact that I’ll care about the state of the kitchen and general housekeeping again.  I’ll go back to insisting on daily bathing rituals.  I’ll get excited about using the copy machine to run off math lessons.  Right now, the kids are on the upswing, meaning they have tons more energy than I do—but they’re all young enough to still need a lot of hand holding to help with chores and still need considerable one-on-one time for schoolwork.  They are bored and I can only boss them around from my prone position on the couch for so long before they revolt and run screaming into the backyard half naked.
Sometimes, when you feel crummy and don’t want to face the day, I think it really is best to surrender to that and hide under the covers as long as the kids will allow.  I’ve heard crashes and clunks and screechings as I’ve been buried in blankets, and when no one comes in bleeding or on fire, I manage to quell the concern over what’s happening by reminding myself that everything in the house is cleanable or replaceable.  Wow, I’ve really sunk low.

Burnout is a part of life—and it often seems to hit me and my family when we’ve been under the weather or had some major change in the family or our environment.  I used to stress about those “blah-I’d-rather-be-doing-anything-but-this” times, thinking I was shortchanging my kids’ education.  I mean, what if they get “behind?”  What if I get SO burned out I can never get out of feeling this way?  But now, I know that this kind of thing is cyclical.  Sometimes, you can force yourself out of it by changing your routine, or taking a couple of days off.  Other times, you just have to ride out the ugliness. When things are good, they’re great.  When they aren’t, they aren’t—and it only makes things worse when you stress out.
I’ve found that having friends to talk to helps a lot.  I meet up once every month or so with a group of other homeschooling moms—we call our meetings “Mother’s Meeting.”  No kids are allowed (except nursing babies) and we meet at someone’s house for a couple of hours to talk about whatever’s going on in our lives.  Our meetings generally have themes or topics and each mom is asked to come prepared to talk about whatever the topic is.  Questions and concerns are encouraged and “what works for you” ideas are even more so.  I find these meetings inspiring—it’s nice to see I’m not the only one dealing with balancing housework with homework, and it’s fun to rejoice in each other’s triumphs.  It’s comforting to share each other’s burdens and concerns.  We laugh, we cry, we encourage each other. Oh, and we generally have treats.  Always an upper, in my opinion.

This month’s meeting is in a week or so, and fittingly, our topic is “Burnout—when does it hit and what do you do?”  I’m looking forward to this meeting because I SO need it.  I’ll post what I learn/gain here on this blog afterward.
Now, back to the couch and the ginger ale.

School in the Time of Upheaval

Just when I felt I had this homeschooling thing figured out and running smoothly—weekly schedule ironed out, lessons planned, supplies purchased or borrowed, chores assigned—our family and household has been thrown into some upheaval.
We’ve had the unexpected addition of some extra people to our household and it appears we will be accommodating said extras for an indeterminate amount of time. This has changed the dynamics of everything from meal times and preparation and timing of lessons to space in the house and the car.  Maybe that sounds like no big deal, but believe me—it is.  There are discipline issues and differing expectations that make for plenty of awkwardness and Motrin-worthy headaches. There have been no end of distractions from schooling (some minor and just annoying, some major and downright frightening.)  And this is not including a newfound anxiety of where to put and what to do with the baby I’m due with in a mere four weeks.
Consequently, we’ve had to fit school in wherever and whenever we can.  I never considered myself a “structure” person, and never put much stock in having a routine, but now that we don’t have any of that anymore, any sense of routine and normalcy is what I crave most.  There have been days where I’ve had to abandon formal school time and just grit my teeth and endure the goings-on around here.  There have been times when I’ve needed to put myself in “time out” so I don’t turn a hard situation into an awful one.  I long for things to go back to  normal…but it appears we’ll have to redefine normal.
I apologize for sounding both cryptic and grim.  What I’d like to get across in this post is that even though we’re in the midst of a less-than-ideal situation, we’re trying to make the best of it.  I’ve had to let go of my expectations that things will run smoothly in any given hour, and I’ve had to practice patience when I’d rather run screaming from the room (or send other people screaming from the room!)  I’m trying to find humor in all the craziness, and I think I’m succeeding (most days.) 
My point here is that even when times are hard, and things aren’t going as planned, we can still accomplish a lot.  We can still learn a lot.  It’s a matter of reassessing one’s priorities. In our case right now, we’re more in survival mode than anything else.  We’re spending less time learning math, grammar, and history, but more time learning adaptability, patience, and diplomacy.  I suppose I should include that we’re learning more about love and charity (by far, the hardest lessons for me.)  In the grand scheme of things, those are probably the most important lessons to learn.