Well, Emilee and I decided to try out LuLu.com and publish our own book. We worked on it these past months in our spare time (Which was very little), but we made it through the process and published it. Check out the link in the sidebar with a picture of the cover. It looks good online, but I just put in my first order for a copy to see how it looks in our hands. I'm anxious to get it. This was an experiment to see how this self-publishing website works from start to finish. Has anyone out there used LuLu or a similar self-publishing site before? Your feedback here would be most helpful.
Kentucky public librarians-Earn up to 1.05 CRP toward certification for the entire conference.
(see CRP credits in schedule below. Sign in required at each session.)
Teachers-please check with your district to learn what professional development credit may be earned through your conference participation.
All Events are included with your Conference Registration
Fees are: Postmarked by October 25: $15 KSA Member, $20 Non-Member
Registered after October 25, or at the door: $35
To attend Evening Storytelling Events: Pay at door each night: $5.00 per person, $10 per family
And here are the videos! I want to give credit to Ryan, Derek and Emilee for their assistance with the videos. Since Emilee started classes at the college, she has provided more consulting and the use of her equipment, whereas Ryan has done the hands-on video editing. Derek has been a real motivator and help with the actual drawings and encouragement.
These videos are a much simplified summary of Mark Kistler's lessons from his book, Draw Squad. They are a repeat of the drawings we did in class, so the students can check back again, or review what was missed. (Including the homework!) If you love the drawing techniques and want to go to the source, I encourage you to get Mark Kistler's books or even search for him on YouTube. There are videos of 'himself' going into greater detail. I also have a link to his website under the "Fantabulous" section of the sidebar of my blog.
When our daughter Emilee was very young, a friend of mine challenged me to consider the importance of homeschooling. Homeschooling was very new to me and completely unheard of among my family and much of the church. Thankfully, there were dedicated pioneers that fought the battles that kept it LEGAL, but there were still battles with the voices of disapproval that seemed to try to undermine or sway us away. It's a great encouragement to see others choose this route. I used to think that everyone must choose their way: public school, private school or homeschool, but I don't think like that anymore. Everyone "homeschools", but each family chooses from whom they receive their direction in education. The public school option never looked appealing to me to begin with, but it has only gotten worse as the years have gone by. Random drug testing and mandatory vaccination are deal breakers for me now, as are the gender issues. Getting the kids to adulthood, responsible, Godly and whole is definitely a major challenge with the political control over curriculum and the pressure to think about moral issues the "right" way, and for our kids and their friends it didn't really hit home until this year that getting to adulthood alive was a another matter entirely. In this , a lot MUST be said for the influence of other kids in the microsociety called "school". After 12 years of homeschooling, I still have people asking me if I'm planning to send the kids to "school". For me, it's like asking if I plan to send them to prison.
I'm thanking God this year that we have moved to an area with a very large and active homeschool group. The support and organization is really wonderful, considering where we had been for the previous 7 years. The isolation in the rural area we lived previously did help us to be more creative, but this new adventure in a larger town with lots of homeschool activities is very refreshing. One of the big things that is a challenge as a homeschooled family is to keep the busy-ness to a manageable level. There are so many 'good' things to do, that they can distract the parents and the kids away from our first love: Christ. Emilee is 17 this year and she said today that she has a burden for stressed families. When she was in 5th & 6th grade, she attended a private school and the pace and stress on her was heartbreaking. I never did nor do I plan to put that kind of burden on the kids. Oh sure, there were moments where I was feeling the pressure because of something someone said to me that made me feel inadequate as a mom or teacher and I wrongly tried to rush the kids through learning to read or finishing 10 math pages a day or read through a stack of books in record time, but the overriding theme of all of our years homeschooling has been to learn what is at hand. When my daughter was 7 years old, I had a lady sternly ask me how in world I thought I was going to teach her calculus. Was calculus at hand when Emilee was 7? 10 years later, calculus is still not here.
As this blog site shows, Emilee is very involved in storytelling. I've written a lot about that and that was one of those things that was "at hand" over the last few years and it has propelled her into the world of reading, writing, recording and vocal performance. She has learned about a great number of things from other storytellers. This is where her passions, talents and abilities lie.
Last Saturday, I drove 4 hours away to the Rubiks Indiana Open 2009, to take our 13yo son Ryan to join the festivities. At this time, this is one of his passions. This was his first attendance at an actual competition for all things Rubik's Cube. He has been solving, unsolving, speed solving, blind-fold solving, taking apart, breaking, putting back together and collecting Rubik's puzzles for the last year, or so. I had an interesting conversation with another mother at the competition about being a supportive parent for these kinds of things. She had the challenge of dealing with teachers at school over her son bringing the Rubik's cube into the classroom. I don't have this problem, per se, as I am the teacher and there is always a Rubik's puzzle of some form in Ryan's hand, pocket or on a table somewhere in the livingroom or diningroom. It's not a "problem", because it has become an important part of Ryan's passion for learning. When he works on his Rubik's Cube skills, he says it inspires him to pick up his guitar. In a year, he has far surpassed my skills on the guitar...okay, I admit that isn't hard to do at all, but he reads guitar tabs and listens to a song and can play enough of the song EXACTLY for us to stop what we're doing and say, "Hey! That's Sweet Home Alabama! Turn it up!"
As for our youngest son, his passion at the moment is drawing. As an art teacher, I am thrilled of course. My other two kids used to do quite a bit of drawing, and I'm not sure if Derek will continue to draw as an adult, but he has put out reams of drawings in the last few months. After a hiatus from drawing classes these last few years, I will be teaching again starting in a few weeks and he is just ecstatic. I took him to Blick Art Materials and took some pictures and video to share with the class. He has been literally counting the days until class starts. His passion for drawing is a perfect example of how teaching things that are at hand will take care of the other areas. Derek has been slower in the reading and writing than his siblings were. He is very active and physical, and found reading and writing to be interesting for a limited time only...until he started drawing. Now he's drawing his own comic books at a very fast pace, and must put the words in the captions and speech bubbles. He had me or his brother or sister doing the words while he would dictate, but now he's just sounding out the words and writing them himself. No, they are not all spelled correctly and we correct the words sparingly. He's reading words all the time and every where he goes now.
Here are a couple of links that I think are most appropriate to the start of the new school year:
This is our Blick Art Materials video:
Bill Harley, one of the storytellers that I have linked in the sidebar, has started a blog and I'm really enjoying his writings:
And I want to add how much I have been enjoying Facebook these past months. I have been a member for a few years, but I never did much with it until this last April. That seems to be the story of a lot of people. Membership has increased dramatically this year. I keep up with my kids and their friends and my family and I've been able to catch up with old friends I haven't talked to in many years. I post pictures there and keep a calendar there and our whole family plays farmtown there. I have my blog linked to my Facebook account, so my updates will post on my profile. It's really been exactly what I had been looking for to pull everything together.
Have a great day and start of school!...whenever you start.
I'm lacking in SO much knowledge about herbal remedies, but I've increased my studies this year and I've been experimenting with more things. Probably the biggest challenge has been giving up the "bad stuff" so we don't need to work so hard to recover! Have you ever eaten too much food or the wrong food and immediately knew you could have done without it? One thing I know for sure I shouldn't do is drink beverages made with high fructose corn syrup when I feel a sore throat coming on. For some reason, they accelerate the progression of the sickness, for me. Even without a sore throat, last night I got a drive thru drink and within minutes, I had a runny nose.
Thankfully, I'm not sick this morning, but this week, we've been battling a few things and I've kept some herbs handy to minimize the sore throats and fatigue. Catching sickness early gives the immune system a boost to do the job it's already trying to do. The sickness around here started where it usually does...after being with a bunch of kids on the weekend, our 8 yo woke up with a sore throat a few days later. I made him a cup of hot tea with yarrow and I made him a throat wrap with ginger, peppermint, sage and rosemary. Under his feet, I put a garlic poultice and he laid on the couch. Our older son had just come home from camp and was a little under the weather, so I made him tea and the garlic poultice for his feet too. By the next morning, they were both running around the house and feeling much better. The little one had a runny nose and dry throat in the morning, but all was better after breakfast.
In my reading this morning, I came across the following excerpt from a testimony off of the website for bulkherbstore.com:
"This morning my Husband woke up with an RA flair up. Early this morning I was in the woods to get some burdock root (because my dried BHS supply is gone). I boiled the root with some plantain leaves in olive oil. Once reduced, I strained out the roots and and poured some into a little spray bottle, the rest I mixed with bees wax. He's been using this for about 3 hours now, and his pain is diminished by 1/2 and he says is getting better as the morning wears on."
I have some boiled burdock root cooling in the other room. I'm going to try it out on joint pain, back pain and a bladder infection. I'll write back and report how it's working, but I'll have to wait until my "lab assistants" wake up.
I wanted to write about my experience with making kombucha, as it was all a mystery to me a year ago, even though I had read about it a number of times. I just didn't seem to have time to look into it and experiment. Everything I read said it was pretty easy to do once I got the hang of it. So, somehow I found the time to do it at the most busy time in our lives, because my chronic stomach troubles were just getting worse. I started buying the kombucha at the health food store, in 16oz bottles. I liked it a lot for the flavor and it seemed to help my tummy, but it costs nearly $4.00 a bottle! So, it was time to look into doing this myself.
I had been a long-time member of an online forum for homeschoolers and I had frequently seen threads posted about kombucha, where I read a lot of tips and tricks. So, I went back and read over some of those. I tried to get a kombucha culture from one of the ladies there, but it was much easier to just buy one on ebay. I looked on ebay for a seller that came recommended, but you can do a search for sellers of kombucha cultures, as well. I bought from the ebay member "Stichingtime" and it was a good experience. She mailed 2 cultures to me by priority mail. They came in a box, wrapped in a ziplock bag with a bit of the kombucha tea to keep them moist. The ziplock was wrapped in paper towel and in the box was a set of instructions on making the tea. The instructions were very emphatic about the use of clean utensils and containers, washing everything with hot, soapy water and then rinsing, with one last rinse in white vinegar. I did all of that and then I made a gallon of green tea, adding a cup of sugar and letting it cool to room temp. The cooling part is pretty important. The hot tea will kill the cultures.
Storing the tea to sit somewhere in my kitchen was a challenge. We were in the process of moving from one house to another and our old kitchen was being packed, but I did have one small, out-of-the-way piece of counter and put up a big sign in the area to NOT TOUCH. (The kids have taken to calling me an HERBshiner) I had bought the 2 quart canning jars from Rural King, as it was harvest season when I started this whole process. I haven't been able to find the jars any other time of the year. (You could buy the huge jars of pickles at WalMart/Sams and after eating the pickles, use the jars for kombucha.) I then poured the tea into the clean jars and dropped one of the cultures into each of the 2 jars. The cultures are round, rubbery patties that are colored any shade from white to brown, depending on the tea strength when the culture was grown. The culture dropped into the tea will sink to the bottom of the jar and it is now called the "mother". I covered the top of the jars with an inverted coffee filter and then screwed on the lid rim without the metal top, so the tea can "breathe". Then I covered them with a towel and put the jars in my kitchen laboratory.
I tried to obey the instructions by not checking too much on their progress, but within a few days, I could see a "baby" forming on top of the liquid in the jars. I let them form until they looked pretty sturdy. It took about 2 weeks. I could have left them longer, but I used the most common advice I had seen in my reading: 2-4 weeks. I was too excited to wait longer than 2, to see how my experiment turned out. I washed my hands and then rinsed them in vinegar before carefully removing the new "baby" from the top and the "mother" from the bottom. Since I wasn't going to use them again immediately, I put them together in a quart jar with a little of the kombucha tea and some extra vinegar to cover them. The instructions said after refrigeration, to use the cultures again soon and no longer than 3 months. I've gone as long as 6 months and had them still work out fine. Anyway, then I put a lid on the jar containing the kombucha tea and put it in the refrigerator. I then tasted the kombucha....hmmm. It didn't have as much of a bite as the one from the healthfood store. The instructions said that I could add some fruit and/or ginger to the jars, put on the entire lid now and let them ferment for up to 30 days. I didn't do that. I just put them in the refrigerator. I drank the kombucha until it was gone.
In subsequent tries, I let the kombucha ferment a little. One time, I added leftover apple juice that had already started to ferment after being left on the kitchen counter for a few days. Now that was a really good batch. This time, I have 4 big jars on the counter, to which I added shredded ginger root and apple juice. Out of the 4 jars, 3 of them keep trying to grow more cultures, which I scoop out and put away. I was doing this while my 13yo son was standing nearby. He wasn't as thrilled as I was. The instructions say that if the jars grow mold, then they aren't working out and to throw them away. I haven't had even one grow mold. One of the jars seems to be fermenting nicely, with small bubbles around the rim at the top. It's the jar that is the most full. They all smell wonderful. Soon, I'll put them in the refrigerator to chill and then drink them.
MMMMM........and much better for the tummy than Coke!
Two years ago, our family was introduced to the world of storytelling. Our previous experience with storytelling had been library programs for preschoolers and episodes of Barney the Dinosaur that included storytellers. But at the urging of our librarian, a storyteller herself, we followed her into a world of creative professionals that were doing everything that we were doing at home, out in PUBLIC! And, I might add, getting paid. Astounding.
Many people are not sure exactly what storytelling is, and it's much easier to demonstrate than to explain. At the recent Smoky Mountain Storytelling Festival, one of the featured storytellers was Andy Offutt Irwin. He tells hilarious stories, plays the guitar and sings and he taught a few of the workshops for the youth. About storytelling, he says "I look at storytelling as a form of theater. I’m on stage doing what I’ve done for years, but now it’s just me. Now I can do all the theater I want without having to worry about sets, costumes, lighting and working with a big cast. It’s very economic, storytelling."
The stories that are told by Andy and other tellers can often be side-splittingly funny and the question is asked how storytelling differs from stand-up comedy. In answer to that question the wikipedia article about Andy Irwin, says this: "Prior to deciding to become a full time storyteller, Irwin worked as a stand-up comedian "for a few minutes". During this time, Irwin won the Farber Invitational stand-up competition at the Punchline comedy club in Atlanta. However, Irwin came to see that the days of storytelling comedians, like Bill Cosby, had passed. Irwin also realized that his style of performance was at odds with the main venue available to comedians today; comedy clubs. (Irwin joking refers to comedy clubs as "evil, smelly places".) Some of his stories are an hour in length and Irwin notes, "[t]here was a time when comedians could do that but they can’t anymore because the clubs give them three minutes, and they are timing the laughs per minute." Using storytelling as a theatrical form allows Irwin to create more fully drawn characters and to explore darker subject matters as well. "Although I like to think of my storytelling as funny, I can have these serious moments. I’m not depending on the audience to laugh the whole time. . . I hope there’s content with the form."
Besides Andy Irwin, at the storytelling festival, we were treated to very informative and thought provoking stories from naturalist Doug Elliot and lots of fun mountain music from him and his son Todd. Storyteller Donald Davis shared hilarious stories from his childhood. Elisabeth Rose hosted the event and told stories as well, of folk and legends. And all of the youth brought stories ranging from fantasy to real life to fractured fairy tales.
Storytelling goes on around us everyday, and if you look, you will see opportunities to attend events where storytellers and listeners gather. On the sidebar of my blog, there are several links for some great storytellers and on each of their sites, there are things to see and places to go. If you are a young person and are interested in storytelling competitions, check out your state storytelling association. In Kentucky, we have the Kentucky Storytelling Association or KSA. There is a link on the side bar as well as a link to the National Youth Storytelling Showcase. If you go to that site, there will be info about participating in the 2010 showcase...the dates, the rules, what to expect. Check it out. If you are interested in any of these things and you don't know how to get started, e-mail me at thecuriouscottage@yahoo.com for more information.
At a recent graduation ceremony for homeschool graduates, one of the speakers made reference to William Borden and the famous quote attributed to him "No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets". We talked about giving every day, every moment our all for Christ. The apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 3:22-24,
"Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God; And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ."
Today, we do the same again, during our devotions:
READ all of Ephesians
WRITE 7-10 verses in our journal
MEMORY verse practice
And read about William Borden, thinking on this: No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets
Today and yesterday, Ryan and I were talking about time, wasting time, squeezing the most out of each day and remembering who we are and why we are here. He mentioned that he had gotten away from memorizing any scripture, so this week we are working on Ephesians 2:10 together:
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."
This verse is now posted in Mark's office on the bulletin board for everyone to encourage one another, and memorize it. We go back to first things...the things we did at the start of our faith in Christ.
This month's bible study for us will be the book of Ephesians. Monday through Friday we will write out a portion of the book of Ephesians until we have the whole book written out in our journal. We did this with Galatians and Phillipians last year, and I recently ran across a note from my middle school son about how glad he was that I MADE him do that. Phillipians was a special blessing for me. I hadn't realized how much of it I had already hidden in my heart, as I am not good at remembering chapter and verse.
On April 7th, my husband was joyously celebrating his 45th birthday. And as we were all milling around the house doing our normal routine, I walked past my 13yo son Ryan as he sat at the computer, looking up info about the Rubiks cube and it's various mysteries. He had his pocket knife out and was using the pliers to pry something apart on the cube, when I heard a quick cry and I turned to see him run into the kitchen. I knew immediately what he had done. I went in the kitchen, and he started apologizing, while he held his hand under running water. He had stabbed himself in the palm of his hand, right the base of his thumb. The knife went in about 3/4 of an inch, and the cut in the hand was about 1/2 inch across. It was bleeding profusely. It was flowing steadily, and Ryan was getting pretty nervous and pale. I pulled up a chair for him and he asked me to get the cayenne pepper out of the freezer. We started putting it directly on the wound. Within a minute or two the bleeding stopped. I washed his hand off and left a small amount of the cayenne directly on top of the wound, then I put a cotton pad over the wound and wrapped the hand with an ace bandage.
Well, off to urgent care we went...my husband, my son and myself. Ryan was much more relaxed and no longer pale. He said his hand was throbbing, but there was no blood showing through the bandage. When the doctor unwrapped the hand, it looked just as it had when I wrapped it. He asked me how long we waited before we put the cayenne on the wound. I said about 3-4 minutes. He said with wounds like that, you can let them bleed for up to 10 minutes, because the blood will clean out the cut. He examined the knife and said he was glad Ryan had not been using it to cut up game or chickens or something. The doctor poked around to make sure Ryan didn't damage any nerves and he asked if the blood was flowing or spurting. Thankfully, there was no nerve damage and he hadn't hit any major vessels. They cleaned and bandaged the wound and gave Ryan a prescription for antibiotics. That night, Ryan took his first and only pain reliever for his hand, so he could sleep. He kept the hand elevated, as it throbbed more when he held it down. There was some swelling, but it never got any larger and by the next day, the swelling was gone and so was the pain. A few days of antibiotics and yogurt to replace the good stuff and all was well.
I've seen the headlines, I've heard the talk, I've gotten the memos at work. I am well aware of the Swine Flu or rather the not-so-Swine flu. I've managed to keep away from all of my regular media outlets, except for the headlines I see as I log into my e-mail account. I've decided not to go back. There is nothing lost by avoiding the news media outlets that take any marketable train-wreck of a story and drag it ten miles farther than it has legs to go. I'm through with that. It's over for me. During my media fast, I received an e-mail about something political that I was urged to act upon. There was a follow up e-mail that said something about the sender getting the feeling that I wasn't a regular reader and responder to critical updates on issues that should get my attention. I wasn't during the month of April and now I'm not, indefinitely.
*whew* That's a burden off my shoulders. I find that the president doesn't return my calls, anyway. Not this president...not any president... But the Lord, God returns my calls.
"Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." - Psalm 50:14-15
"The truth teller, as Socrates predicted long ago, will have his eyes gouged out. So it has been. So it will always be. We don't gouge eyes out nowadays, not in civilized society. We merely tell the man who turns from the broad road to the narrow that he is hung up, not in touch with his feelings, a do-gooder, a party pooper, holier than thou---any label that will exonerate the rest of us of the responsibility of being Christ-like. We pity his naivete, his narrowness ,his unreality, never suspecting tht there could be in our midst a few whose minds are set on things above because their lives are his with Christ."
- Elisabeth Elliot Discipline, The Glad Surrender
This is my last blog post for awhile. My media fast is starting a bit late, but I almost got pulled into reading a story about whether or not the Obamas committed a faux pas with the queen. *sigh*
I'm going away to get off the broad road and seek the narrow.
It's that time of year again! It's time for my blogoversary and for a media fast. My blog will be completely updated, all links tested and the ticker will be up and "running" by Sunday night, March 29th. Last year I posted my final blog in March and took a break from "media" for the month of April...media for me being tv, radio, news, forums, blog posts, etc. I will still have to check e-mail and I will listen and make Godly music and listen to preaching and teaching. My last post in March from 2008 is here:
1. Teaching Math In 1950s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit ?
2. Teaching Math In 1960s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
3. Teaching Math In 1970s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?
4. Teaching Math In 1980s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
5. Teaching Math In 1990s
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers, and if you feel like crying, it's ok.)
6. Teaching Math In 2009
Un hachero vende una carretada de maderapara $100. El costo de la producciones es $80. Cuanto dinero ha hecho?
...and much better for the tummy than Coke!
And as we were all milling around the house doing our normal routine, I walked past my 13yo son Ryan as he sat at the computer, looking up info about the Rubiks cube and it's various mysteries. He had his pocket knife out and was using the pliers to pry something apart on the cube, when I heard a quick cry and I turned to see him run into the kitchen. I knew immediately what he had done. I went in the kitchen, and he started apologizing, while he held his hand under running water. He had stabbed himself in the palm of his hand, right the base of his thumb. The knife went in about 3/4 of an inch, and the cut in the hand was about 1/2 inch across. It was bleeding profusely. It was flowing steadily, and Ryan was getting pretty nervous and pale. I pulled up a chair for him and he asked me to get the cayenne pepper out of the freezer. We started putting it directly on the wound. Within a minute or two the bleeding stopped. I washed his hand off and left a small amount of the cayenne directly on top of the wound, then I put a cotton pad over the wound and wrapped the hand with an ace bandage.
