Pay off mortgage early?

I get the emails from Debt Into Wealth, and I must admit, it sounds awfully tempting not to have a mortgage. However, we've decided instead to have a savings plan and continue paying our mortgage at the regular rate, and here are some of the reasons:

• We want to build up savings to the recommended three to six months worth of expenses. If my husband lost his job , savings and investments will help a lot more than a lower mortgage balance.
  
• We want to save money to make a down payment on a new car when one is needed.
  
• Although I'm not sure about this, I think having a mortgage may result in more financial aid when the boys go to college. Even if we paid an extra 1K a month (ouch!), we wouldn't pay off the mortgage for another eleven years, which is about the time our first will be heading off to college. My guess is his college would be happy to help us out with that sudden extra cash flow.

We've set up a plan with ShareBuilder where we invest regularly each month, some in the stock market, and some in a money market account. I really like having the money taken out automatically -- much less temptation to spend it instead of saving it each month. Yet if we need it, it's there and available to us.

We don't have credit card debt to pay off, and rollup into the next debt. But we will use future raises to increase our ShareBuilder allotment, and when we pay off our HELOC, we'll increase our savings amount by that figure (as we did recently with our car payment).

If we didn't have an automatic savings plan, or our weren't disciplined enough to use it, paying off the mortgage might work -- but I think it's a big risk to put extra money into a mortgage without an emergency savings stash.

There are a lot of articles on both sides of this argument -- I like this one: http://www.fool.com/foolu/askfoolu/2001/askfoolu010307.htm.

Recurring Chores

I'm not generally a New Year's Resolution type, but this year I seem to have some, and they're all the stereotypical ones, one being to keep my house better. I've been trying FlyLady again, without complete success. If I get on track with zones, I seem to fall down on weekly tasks. One step I took that I think was helpful was to split my own house into zones that work for my house: 1: Family room and Mudroom (which are connected), 2: Kitchen (which must take 80% of my cleaning time), 3: Bathrooms, Laundry room & sewing room, 4: Bedroom and Office, and 5: Living Room. I also printed out one of these calendars and marked out six day periods and labeled the weeks with zones. That way the family and living rooms don't get shortchanged.

Then I rediscovered Motivated Moms. I must have looked at it before, because I have the free 2002 calendar on my hard drive. Like any system, it doesn't fit me perfectly, but isn't that weekly checklist awful cute? So then I spent obsessive hours trying to figure out how I can make my own Motivated Moms calendar, with my own tasks and intervals that are right for me and my house. I want to be able to easily move a task if too many tasks end up on the same day, and I want to print it out. I looked at Outlook and Microsoft Project and a bunch of pages Google turned up, and didn't find anything that does what I want it to.

But it turns out that Palm Desktop will. I have a monochrome Sony Clie with DateBk5 and it handles recurring tasks pretty well. But I don't always look at it, and the tasks start to build up after a while and become daunting! But Palm Desktop will print out a weeks worth of my calendar. The only fault as far as I'm concerned is that it displays each task with a diamond rather than a check box. I'm surprised it's so difficult to figure this out. I wonder how Motivated Moms makes theirs?

And how does my house look? Well, I just moved the office into the living room so that the new carpet can get put in on Thursday, and it's a wreck!

Choosing Floor Covering

All of a sudden, my whole house seems to be falling apart! I took apart the room we use as a home office last spring and moved the computer into the livingroom. It fits there so well that we lost the impetus to redo the office. Also, in the middle of painting the ceiling I gashed my arm open -- that slowed me down too. But, the office is finally painted (Benjamin Moore Moroccan Red with a white ceiling and medium brown stained woodwork), and for the last few months I've been waffling about what to put on the floor. I'm concerned about allergies, the environment in general, and the environment inside our house. There's another floor that I want to replace, too, money permitting. The living room floor is eight years old and between the kids and the dogs is totally trashed. Our livingroom is at the center of our house -- it leads to a bathroom, the stairs, the kitchen, the office, and the front door opens into it. The TV is in the living room. Shutting it off to kids is not a good option, so the floor needs to survive the boys.

In the end I choose an affordable Berber for the office and then spent at least a month second-guessing myself. I looked heavily at Flor carpet squares. I wanted to like them, but I didn't love any of the options I looked at. So the Berber is being installed tomorrow. I don't feel great about it, but I do think I'll like it, as long as it isn't stinky.

And stinky brings me to the livingroom. The carpet is about eight years old and has been misused by the dog. It isn't bad in the cold weather, but once it starts to get warm and humid, the odor is noticable. I'm really struggling with this one. Affordable, environmentally sound choices don't seem to be prevalent. I'm looking at wood, currently.

A good homeschooling day

Currently my three children are productively employed. The oldest has taken pictures of Lego and has figured out how to print them, three to a page, directly from our new printer. He is planning to write a story and make a "book" with them. Earlier he listened to a Burgess Animal story, which I'll check off of Week 14 of Ambleside Online Year 2 curriculum. The five-year old is listening to a tape of the King's Singers Reluctant Dragon, and the youngest found Yahtzee and was messing around with it -- he's since packed it up and put it away (I was impressed!). About half an hour ago they all needed me at once, but they've since gotten the help that they needed, and have gotten on with their projects. I'm working on some chicken broth, knitting a sock, sewing a Tiny Happy bag, and blogging. I need to clean the kitchen.

Not all days are like this! In fact, even the rest of today won't be like this!

Kids giving gifts

This year it seemed like it was finally time for the boys to start giving gifts as well as receiving them. In past years it has felt like too much work – in fact, this year it felt like too much work, too, but it also seemed like the right thing to do. A fairly trite case of doing what was right rather than doing what was easy. So we buckled down and figured out doable projects. I thought of beaded gifts, since we have some beads around, but bracelets and necklaces were too big for me and my kids. For one thing, I have a thing about gifts – I don't want them to be clutter. So if we made jewelry, I'd want it to be wearable. But if the kids make gifts, I want them to feel ownership. I could see myself hovering and fixing, and it wasn't going to be a good thing. So only a week or so before Christmas I thought of earrings. Now earrings don't work for everyone on our gift list. They don't even work for all the women, because not all the women have pierced ears. But for the women who do, my five-year old made earrings.



You can buy pieces of wire like pins, with a head on the end to hold the beads, load it with a few beads, leaving enough wire at the end to twist around the earring finding that you can get at a craft or bead store – I got ours at AC Moore. M did the beading – he chose the beads and put them on the wire, often more than once if they fell on the floor. He made two to match. Then I wrapped the wire onto the earring finding and voila, a beautiful gift. (Although, don’t underestimate the wrapping procedure if you’re a beading newbie like me. However, since it was a gift from a five-year old, I didn’t feel perfection was necessary.)

For people who don't have pierced ears, we made bookmarks on a ribbon. These were less successful in my opinion, because I had to be involved the whole time, to help him thread the beads onto the ribbon (we used a waxed piece of thread, folded in half as the "needle"). With the earrings I could walk away while he prepared the wires, and attach them to the earring piece later – he could watch or not.

P, who is eight, had trouble with the earrings. He wanted to use big beads, which slip of the end of the wire. He didn't want to hear me tell him that if he started with small bead, it would hold the big bead on. He stuck an ugly button on the wire which looked terrible, and my perfectionist tendencies kicked in. So to cut to the chase, he drew pictures on bookmarks that we cut out of cardstock, and felt very proud of them, and I'm sure the recipients will like them too. They meet my criteria because a little piece of paper, used as a bookmark (I use old envelopes all the time) just cannot be clutter. At least not as long as people read books, which isn't a sure thing, I guess!

E, who is three, made a single gift – he climbed on my lap and said he wanted to make a present, so we did. I didn't feel that he was up to making more than that. Maybe next year.

Need more money?

Here are my options for finding more cash to pay the holiday bills, the astronomical oil heating bill, or to fund replacing the stinky living room carpet (the nine-year old dog has issues):

• Pinch the grocery budget
• Stop all (or most) discretionary spending
• Earn some/more -- get a contract job, or try to sell some sewing (kids pants and baby carriers are the top of the list). Anyone know the best way to sell things like this?
  

That's it. Nothing that isn't obvious, but sometimes I have to remind myself.

NaNoWriMo, Week 3

Today is the first day of the third week of NaNoWriMo. it's also the fifteenth of a thirty day month. So event the mathematically challenged among us can easily figure out that NaNos should be near the 25,000 word mark.

That is actually in shooting range for me, although I've had a busy week. I'm within 1667 words of 25,000.

I cracked the chapter of No Plot, No Problem that talks about week 3 this morning. Week 2 is notoriously hard, and my experience was, indeed, that it was difficult. Last nightI used a scene that I had saved in a different file to bolster my word count -- now that buffer is gone. The urge to quit is strong. Why am I doing this again?

Well, Week 3 is supposed to get easier as the story takes off on it's own. So I'm hoping that's what happens to mine. On the other hand, the support network tends to get pretty tired of this endeavor.

I'll keep pressing forward. I have no idea how I'm going to tie up my novel, but my experience has been that I can write another 1700 words (or so) each day, and move the plot forward somewhat.

Please continue to wish me luck!

NaNoWriMo update

I'm still writing. I'm on track for 50,000 words, although it's only the one-fifth benchmark at midnight.

What's easy: I don't find writing 1667 words in a day that difficult. Even when I think I'm too tired I've managed it. On the other hand. I stop when I reach that goal, which could easily come back to bite me if anything happens this month -- like, say, hosting Thanksgiving (oh yeah, we're doing that). I have a rough story. The details that are part of my own life are easy.

What's hard: actually coming up with made up stuff is hard. Creating characters is hard. Creating a reasonable story arc is hard. Filling in the mystery's details is murderous.

Please wish me luck!

NaNoWriMo

I'm looking for more outlets for my energy than houswork, cooking, and Sudoku puzzles. Every now and then the universe bops me on the head, and that's how I felt when I heard about National Novel Writing Month. Can I do it? I have no idea. But I really like the idea that you don't have to have a plot to start a novel. And since I think I would like to write fiction, and I'm not working right now (for money), this seems like the right thing to do.

So far (day 3) I'm on course for 1667 words per day (for a total of 50,000 words in 30 days). That gives me ten extra words, but who's counting (well, I am, about every thirty seconds)! I find that the power of a goal is amazing. It's only day three, so we'll see how it goes, but I think I'm out of ideas, but the word goal pushed me on. What I have is not great, but I'm pretty happy with the whole process, and I'm interested to see how the process goes.

The NaNoWriMo community is faboulous, so I have hope that when I get stuck, I'll be able to get help from them -- at least some questions to get the juices flowing again. On the down side, the boards are really slow.

Students need different tools for success

A teacher writes about school from much the same perspective that I wrote my letter. In Waging a Battle on Standardized Tests by Dan Brown in the Boston Globe today a teacher writes about his students unique needs and how the current system, with its emphsis on testing, fails to nurture students individual strengths. He writes "American public schools have more money than ever, but students are still widely denied the most crucial tools for their success: individual attention and specialized support."

No answer here, but an agreement on the problem.

NaNoWriMo Warmup

Preface

Imagine that you’re trying to write a novel – 1500-2000 words a day for a whole month. What would that be like? In the beginning, there’s the lack of a plot – or maybe just too many fractional plots. Fantasy pops into my head – like Crystal Singer or Wrinkle in Time. Or maybe an upscale romance like the Luanne Rice book I’m reading right now, or the Eileen Baker I just finished. I love historical fiction, but that seems like it would need too much research. I don’t have time for research in addition to one thousand words a day – I have a household to run and children to homeschool! I’ve been saying that there should be more romance novels (good for sex life) for married ladies. If it’s true that minivan drivers have sex only three times a month, and that romance novels improve sex life (according to Christiane Northrup), then that seems like a niche waiting to be filled. But what does that look like? If you don’t get the thrill of a new love, that makes the story much harder to write – it might even need actual skill! Yikes! Plots are what I don’t have. I can put one word after the other, I can write non-fiction, but fiction is elusive to me – I feel like it’s just out of sight of my peripheral vision, I can’t quite reach it. I have a scene written of a minivan with a mom and three kids crashing into water – my own fear. If I can include that, it’s a whole three hundred words. Woo hoo.

Alright, so it turns out I’ve already written about a thousand words – I opened my other file and found them. Of course, some of them are in the form of a list – not exactly fiction. But here’s the idea – a woman living my life (because I know that) and her daydreams of living an exciting life. She can live in a Jennifer Crusie novel, a Janet Evanovich novel, a Judith Tarr novel, a Diana Gabaldon novel. I can combine them all – how’s that for cheating! I’m not sure where the tension will be in the “real life” side, but, hey, this is all about word count, right? About people not actually throwing up when they read it? And about finding my inner fiction, because, god dammit, I’m sure it’s there. Hidden under layers of junk, but there somewhere. And, oh – I challenge myself to put in a sex scene.

Can you imagine? Delusions of grandeur already. A published novel! Ooh, that part is pretty good. Alright you – yes you, author lady! You have to actually have a plot to publish a novel! Some pretty words strung together is not enough! What a surprise. It takes actual work! So let’s say seven hundred words in the morning and seven hundred every evening. Now that the Red Sox have won the World Series, baseball season is over and there are three extra hours in every day. Of course, Christmas is also coming, but hey – two hours to write and one to plan for Christmas. If the words will flow, one hour to write might do it. Is that true? I’ll have to measure my speed some day – that will be good for a few more words.

I need to name my protagonist. Christine is a nice uptight name. But Aria is prettier. Gives her something to live up to . More Luanne Rice-like. Hmm.

What's wrong with kids these days?

A recent letter I wrote to our local paper was chosen as Letter of the Week! My pen (gift from the paper) arrived today!

Columnist David Brooks writes about the odyssey years, the years of wandering during young adulthood. He claims this wandering is a sensible reaction to the uncertainties of the modern world.

I think he comes closer to the truth when he quotes, “Young people grow up in tightly structured childhoods, but then graduate into a world characterized by uncertainty, diversity, searching and tinkering.”

How do we prepare our children for life in a world of uncertainty? By putting them in a highly structured environment for 13 or more years; by teaching them many facts, facts that are at their fingertips in this wired world, which they know how to navigate better than their elders.

We separate them from the fluid world so they don’t get the chance to figure out how they are uniquely qualified to serve the world and live a fulfilling adulthood until they are on their own. The system doesn’t encourage the creativity and innovation we need in the world today. Do children have the opportunity and encouragement to enable them to find their gifts?

If we can figure out how to structure childhood to give children a basic smattering of facts, to learn how to find out what they need to know, and, most of all, to nurture their individuality and give them the freedom to figure out where they will fit in the world, we might find that young adults had a tremendous amount to give to this troubled world.

A friend wrote me that on reading my letter her husband was convinced that they should homeschool, even though he had never considered it before.

This is, in fact, my philosophy of why we homeschool. In it's current incarnation, I do offer my kids a fair number of facts, but not for more than an hour a day or so, and they have most of the rest of the time to explore their own interests. This is what works for us now, but as time goes on my kids may need/demand something different.

I believe that every child should have the opportunity for a childhood like this, not just those whose parents have the time to nurture their individuality. I don't know what this model looks like in an institutional/mass setting. It is not a simple change by any means, but an important one. If I figure out how to work toward it for society, you'll hear more about it here.

More thoughts on Kindergarten

On a whim (or maybe it was a parental panic attack (PPA) day), I bought a used copy of My Father's World kindergarten package. Here is my review.

I'm very happy with it, but first the issues I have with it. I think it's a bit too academic in general and for my kindergartener if you do everything, and some of the crafts are a little too "canned" for my taste, but it has a fabulous list of topics and activities. Another caveat is its religious name and themes, but those can easily be omitted (or included only when they are in line with your values) without losing the value of the curriculum as a whole.

It starts with the Biblical creation story which I decided to include. I hope we will discuss many creation stories, and this one is quite beautiful. It suggests many pre-reading activities, some of which I will do, and some that I will skip. After the creation unit a week is spent on each letter of the alphabet and a science topic that begins with that letter. The list is available here. It suggests books and activities for each topic, and there is plenty of content to choose from, and plenty of content for your kindergartener to soak up. The letter flash cards are really nice, and I like the inclusion of simple games. Of the programs I've looked at (Oak Meadow and AmblesideOnline Yr 0) at this level I like this best. That said, please read the articles referenced in my other Kindergarten post about not pushing your Kindergartener too much academcally!

The recommendation in the curriculum is 90 minutes six days a week. I'm thinking I'll do more like 30 minutes at a time!

Why Homeschool

An On Point show this week on innovators and entrepreneurs, which prompted me to think again of why I choose to homeschool. The show featured some innovators, mostly scientific, I believe (I missed the beginning). As I listened I was thinking of what I want for my kids. At the same time I am trying to define my own goals, and I'm reading I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was. This book encourages the reader to discover why they are not following their gifts, and one step is to consider what those who know/knew you want/ed you to be.

To take this back to homeschooling, I have multiple thoughts. One is not to have expectations of what my children will do as adults. On the other hand, listening to the show on innovators, I want them to have the education to do whatever they wish -- I would hate for them to be held back by choices that I make about their education -- although, if I set the level of preparation at the same level as our public school, perhaps the bar is lower than it could be. And a point that seems difficult for non-homeschoolers to grasp is that I don't want to damage our family relationships in my effort to provide the education that I think is required. Although I do expose them to topics, and I do strongly encourage handwriting and math and I do not push to hard. Some exposure may be important, but force isn't required for them to find and follow their gifts.


We have a small high school at a local technology institute. I would like for them to be equipped to go to that high school, if that is what they wish. But I don't wish that for them if that is not their interest. It may be that my eldest will want to pursue some aspect of film, or some as yet unfound interest. I want to remember that for all of them to pursue a livelihood that uses their unique gifts is the most important gift I can give them. It is most likely to lead them to the happy life that I wish for them.

Eating Right: Local and Organic

I've recently read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and I'm thinking more about the way we buy and eat. It's not easy to do the right thing! Here are some of the things I'm thinking about.

I would like to stop buying factory farmed meat. Although I've toyed with vegetarianism, Kingsolver makes a good argument for omnivorism, and then, as always with this issue, there are the practical concerns -- such as my husband really likes meat! So I need to find local meat, and I can. There is a farm about 20 minutes away that sells their own pork, chicken, lamb, and beef. These animals are locally and humanely raised, but I don't know if they're fed pesticide-treated grain. There is a turkey farm another 10 minutes away that has pretty good practices, but could probably not be considered organic. So if I can do the trip just once a month or so, I can probably meet that goal. I am concerned about the cost, but so far the prices are somewhat reasonable, and if I save extra trips to the supermarket, I will probably save some money.


Produce is more difficult for me. I shop irregularly, and try to shop without the kids, so working Farmer's markets into my schedule is more difficult than it should be. There is a farm (not far from the meat farm) that sells in season produce, and they use IPM, so I feel comfortable buying from them. I am not an expert at planning my menus around what I found. I like to choose a recipe then get the ingredients. Also, my husband calls our crisper drawer in the fridge the "rotter drawer" which is sadly too accurate! Frozen organic produce may be my best choice. I'm just not seeing myself buying up all the in-season organic local produce I can find and canning it or otherwise processing it for use the rest of the year. I've considered joining a CSA, but have so far resisted, because I'm afraid that only I would eat what we got, and I'd feel guilty about any waste. As I've said before, I may have gone wrong way back in terms of what my kids will eat!

After reading Kingsolver's book, and with my newly raised conscienceness about pesticides, I find trips to the supermarket excruciatingly frustrating. What's safe? Everything has pesticides or high fructose corn syrup! Of course you know this, but there are whole aisles of junk -- an aisle of cookies and crackers, an aisle of sugar cereal, an aisle of corn syrup salad dressing, and aisle of crunchy pesticide chips. There is no organic bread in my supermarket. I realized that of the healthiest foods I buy, I eat most of them, and my kids get the SAD (Standard American Diet) stuff. (Medium SAD only -- I have some standards!)

I'm getting ready to make our bread. I have a Bosch Universal on my Christmas list, and I think I'll get the Family Grain Mill package from Survival Unlimited with the Bosch adaptor and the hand base. They have the best price I've found. I don't have much of a plan for food stores in case of an emergency, so I figure some wheat berries (which last for years) and a hand mill would be part of that plan. The trade off between time and healthiness is very clear to me. I think I'm willing to take on bread, especially if I'm making 6 loaves at a time. There is the worry that my family won't like what I make, but I've been making bread off and on for a while, and it generally gets eaten. I might not be able to go to 100% whole wheat, but I think it will be healthy bread, and I can buy organic wheat berries. There is a store about 50 minutes away that carries organic whole grains -- worth it if I go only once or twice a year.

Kindergarten thoughts and links

While I mostly unschooled P for Kindergarten, I enjoyed having some structure for first grade last year, and I’m afraid that M (who is five) may not demand my time if I don’t schedule anything for him.

I appreciate the attitude that less is more, especially for this age group. Here are some articles along those lines:
http://www.besthomeschooling.org/articles/lillian_jones_ps_kdgtn.html
http://www.besthomeschooling.org/articles/david_elkind.html (linked in the first article)
http://www.besthomeschooling.org/gateway/inted16.html

I’m already seeing that self-direction will take him where I want him to go – he’s asking to write words every few days, and I help him with that, and today he expressed a wish to read (perhaps the first time I’ve heard that from him). So I’m looking for a gentle structure. I’ve found some great booklists – too many maybe! Some activities that fit with the way our family works would be a good addition (that is, non-twaddly, and of interest to my kids). At some point during the year, when he seems interested, I’ll help him make a calendar with holidays and birthdays on it. I continue to hope to get outside more. We watch Between the Lions mainly for him, although I’m not sure if he gets any literacy education from it – enjoys the stories, though! I may buy Teach a Child to Read With Children's Books.

These are some of the curriculum/book lists that appeal to me, and that I'll draw from this year:

• Oak Meadow http://www.oakmeadow.com/curriculum/samples.htm curriculums for preschool through 1st grade (open the sample and read the table of contents for ideas even if you're not interested in buying the curriculum)
  
• Letter of the week ideas http://www.letteroftheweek.com/index.html. At the same site are Science of the week, Story of the week, Country of the week, etc.
  
• My Father’s World has a lovely book list for Kindergarten. http://www.mfwbooks.com/1_k_read.htm , with each week associated with a letter http://www.mfwbooks.com/1_k_theme.htm, but not in alphabetical order, which is fine with me!
  
• Sonlight http://www.sonlight.com/cp-b.html
  
• Winter promise themed programs http://www.winterpromise.com/themed.html
  I’m ready to learn
  Journeys of Imagination
  Animals and their worlds

• And some more links on kindergarten from the excellent site, A to Z Home's Cool: http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/weblinks/kindergarten.htm
  
  

Fonts and other resources for handwriting (mostly italic)

August 2009: See my updates a review of BFH and plans to create my own curriculum.

I've been thinking about buying either StartWrite or Educational Fontware, but I'm on the fence. I really only need one set of fonts, so I balk a bit at spending $25 - 35 for it. I have some educational fonts that I've found for free, so I thought I'd share what they are. I haven't seen these listed in one place. I prefer a slanted font, and currently I plan to teach cursive italics rather than traditional cursive. This is not intended to be a complete list, just a list of what interested me.

I would like to be able to make lines in the same proportion as the fonts, and so far that's been an issue with the free fonts I've found, although I could use the lines from the Learning Curve font even though I'm not planning to teach cursive.

When you evaluate a font, look at all the letters, upper- and lowercase. Is the lowercase a the form you like? How about the uppercase G? I'm partial to a nice upward slant on the bottom of a lowercase a, so I look for that. Check each letter, perhaps comparing them to the handwriting workbook of your choice.

These are the fonts that I've found that look useful:

• Possibly the most useful font is free on all Windows computers -- Lucida Sans, when italicized, looks an awful lot like a nice italic hand. With this or any other font that doesn't come in a dotted or dashed version, you can use the Font dialog box to choose Outline format (or another format you like, such as engraved or raised). You could also make the font color gray, so that you can see what your child has written over the top. Windows Vista has some additional Lucida fonts such as Lucida Handwriting and Lucida Calligraphy that you may like.
  
• Neal Font: a dotted slanted font. Possibly useful italic-like font, but difficult to read.
• Jarman and Jardotty (select your computer type from the menu at the left): Nice dotted italic font. Make a worksheet based on Jardotty here. The creator of these fonts writes about handwriting here, including some animated suggestions for better handwriting.
• Precursive New: a slanted font available with arrows, dashed, or as a regular unadorned font from BJU.
• Foundation Handwriting: I don't like the C or c and the uppercase G, and I'd rather have a lowercase k without the loop. However, in italics, it's an italic cursive font (lowercase only), which may be it's most useful feature. I got the basic font for free, but I haven't found it again except as a set for sale. (Possibly here. Use a virus checker please!)
  
• Print Clearly: An upright printed font available in a dashed version. From Blue Vinyl Fonts.
• Skyland: an upright printed font with arrows.
• Learning Curve: a cursive learning font, also available in a dashed font. Quite pretty. The font also includes dingbats for learning characters to create lined paper. From Blue Vinyl Fonts.
• Kid Letter Font: D'Nealian style, includes lines, arrows, dots, and other options. $15
  

Some other resources:

• About.com has a page on free teaching fonts here: http://desktoppub.about.com/od/fonts/p/schoolfree.htm
• dafont.com had a category of school fonts (I think I've included the best above, but the one with only a bottom and a middle guideline may be useful to some)
• Fontgarden.com has some cool handwriting fonts that could be useful helping an older student to develop a personal style.
• This site has some great ideas about teaching italics -- could easily replace a book (click the Quick results, easy work link).
• Another great site on learning and teaching italics, this one by Ted Power.
• Donna Young has some handwriting pages, although she doesn't favor italics.
• An overview of handwriting styles from Zaner Bloser. (Not actually from Zaner Bloser, according to Kate Gladstone. See comment section.)(Looks like Zaner Bloser actually bought this link since I made the post and Kate commented on it.)
  
• Kate herself has a list of handwriting resources here (click the Resource People link at the bottom of the page).
  

For money:

• Check out StartWrite and Educational Fontware if you want to spend money. They are likely to be your best bet. The Fontware give you fonts on your computer that you can use in any application. StartWrite allows you to make pretty worksheets in any of a variety of fonts (personally, I like the Australian fonts). They both get glowing reviews
• D'Nealian fonts for sale ($20)
• I'm intrigued by the Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting program, which comes with fonts. The fonts alone are about $17, and are included with the curriculum.
• http://www.schoolfonts.com.au/: Pretty Australian fonts, but not free.
• About.com's list of Commercial Fonts for Teachers.
• Penny Gardner's book, Italics: Beautiful Handwriting for Children. I own this and like it, but would still like to be able to make customized copywork for my kids.
• Some beautiful copywork books from Downunder Literature.
• The popular workbooks, such as Handwriting Without Tears, Getty Dubay, and many others (try Rainbow Resources for starters).
• A list of handwriting resources at Cynscribe Calligraphy Resources. http://www.cynscribe.com/handwriting.html
• A plug for Modern Italic Handwriting with a free lesson. Useful for adults wanting to learn or practice italics. http://www.studioarts.net/calligraphy/italic/handwriting.html

That's it! Let me know if you find anything here useful!

Charlotte Mason outside time

The weather has broken here after a long hot humid spell, so I decided today would be a good day to try to get our 4-6 hours outside, as Charlotte Mason recommends. This has been a typically up and down day.

I went out around 10am with the clippers. First I had to chase the kids off the non-Charlotte Mason approved computer. I took out my tree book to identify a tree near our driveway, and tried to get my five-year old interested in that, not particularly successfully (I think it's a Hickory tree). I spent awhile clipping, and after a little moping, the boys got busy drawing in chalk on the driveway. That is, until the five-year old freaks out about his brothers messing up his drawing. I have a little talk with the oldest about how important it is for the five year old to feel that he can draw (since he’s intimidated by how good his brother is at it), then I go around to clip in the back, after suggesting we separate the driveway so that middle boy can have his own part. Of course, the three-year old isn’t very good about following rules like this, but I’m not sure that came into play. Pretty soon the seven-year old comes running out with the five-year old in pursuit. Turns out the middle child has been throwing ice cubes at his big brother because he’s still mad about the drawing. thing. So I sent him to his room, and on the way he yells at me that I’m stupid, which earns him a little extra talking to.

Later, they swang for a bit, and then we had lunch outside, which was a little hard to coordinate, but we managed, and had a good 10 or 15 minutes, including noticing an interesting bug. I commented on our trees—which ones matched and which ones were different.

Later, my oldest wanted me to read with him, and at my suggestion he set up a spot for us with cushions while I did a little cleaning up in the kitchen. That worked for about fifteen minutes, and then the other two got a little too rowdy and we stopped to look at clouds for a few minutes.

After another break inside, I came out again to practice throwing a Frisbee. The middle boy turned on the hose, but the three-year old ended up in control! They had a good time, that is, until the five-year old freaked out about getting squirted when he didn’t want to be.

Tonight we have a Frisbee game, so that will be more time outside, so we’ve definitely exceeded the recommended time, but it ain’t easy! I find that most outside time is like this – some good, but a lot of issues, too.

I Surrender! I Take It Back!

When I was a new mother of a single baby, I did not immediately surrender to motherhood. I especially did not surrender to homemaking. But as time went by and I had two additional babies (eventually, three children under five), I did. I was a mother and a homemaker, and I came close to embracing that role in my life as well as in at least one holiday letter sent out to friends and relatives. My relationship with housework has always been rough, but I do accept it as my responsibility, currently, although I do expect some help (and I don't do laundry).

But now I'm wanting to take a little back, to find a little ambition and figure out what to do with it. The first step is to permanently give up any thoughts of having any more babies. I know we're done, I really do, and there are plenty of good reasons not to have any more babies, but I still find it hard to state definitively that this is it. Nobody I tell believes me.

The second step may be to figure out which ambition to follow. Should I try to save the world? Should I try to write that bestselling historical novel? I have enviable leisure to figure that out; well maybe not leisure, exactly, but I don't have to work for a living, currently; I just have to take care of a house and three kids.

My biggest problem? I feel like my creativity is stuck, and I don't know how to crack it open. I think that my calling is to write. I am a published technical writer, but that, I'm almost sure is not my calling. I love to read. Lately my reading list has been a bit bland -- books about homeschooling, homemaking, and chick lit, mostly. But I'm a historical fiction nut. I love A Midwife's Tale, by Laurel Ulrich. I read fantasy: Judith Tarr, Ursula Le Guin, Shari Tepper, Anne McCaffrey. I like mysteries, but of all the genre's I read, I'd be surprised if I ever wrote mysteries. But where do I find the stories? I don't seem to have them. Maybe a scene here or there, but no complete story arcs. Maybe non-fiction is a better bet for me?

And then there's this baggage from my last worthwhile endeavor -- that is, being a mother to young kids. I still have those kids, and I'm still committed to giving them the best childhood that I can. It's just that I want to find a little something meaningful for myself, too. I'm petrified, that I'll look up in fifteen years and wonder what I thought I was doing with all that time. I recently listened to an interview with a homeschooling mother of one, whose life still seems to center around homeschooling -- her only daughter is 28! I don't want to send my boys to school, but I recognize that I'm afraid of the work of finding and following through with an alternative. There is an alternative school within commuting distance, but I'd have to work to pay the tuition. We have a relaxed lifestyle at home now, and that would change if we went that route.

And somewhere in there is finding some time for this new ambition. Although it's true that my kids are less work than when they were 0, 2, and 4 (they must be, right?), I find it hard to actually find that time in my day. Apart from creating and cleaning up three meals a day, plus snacks, plus keeping the house in acceptable shape, not to mention answering a hundred questions an hour with a smile on my face, there are plenty of family-type projects to work on, from photo albums to family movies to family room shades. And I've always struggled with routines -- I think I want one, I may even spend time creating one on paper, yet they never last for long. Yet I think that is what I need to carve out time for me.

Part of me is ready to jump right in, but another part of me thinks I need to educate myself first. I don't know enough to be able to write like Diana Gabaldon. And even though J. K. Rowling gets plenty of criticism, she seems to know plenty of history, mythology, and literature. Natalie Goldberg says to be specific: not just tree, but sycamore. I don't know anything about trees! But how to get there? What the heck did I do for nineteen years of school?! I think it has to be independent study, but I wish I had a way to make myself accountable for it.

But that is the beginning of my plan: 1) Read. Read more widely. Read things that are difficult. Think about and form opionions about what I read. 2) Write. Attempt to write fiction. If scenes are all I have, then just write scenes.

Sewing t-shirts

We've been bleeding money lately (new hot water heater, new tires and brakes, and too many other things), and I need some t's and have some fabric, so I'm making shirts. Burda 3197 is my basic pattern, but I'm looking for options so that they don't all look alike. I've searched for a page, and I'm sure it's out there, but I haven't found it, so this is a compilation of what I have found on methods to vary a t-shirt pattern:

This is a page on making a t-shirt:

http://www.timmelfabrics.com/perfecttshirt.htm
http://www.timmelfabrics.com/knitslessontwo.htm

A video on binding a neckline:

http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/tvt044.asp

An article from Threads on sewing Ts:

http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/t00161.asp

A pattern for a twist top:

http://rowena.typepad.com/rostitchery/2006/05/twist_top_with_.html

My first shirt has a double front, and I'm struggling with it! The fabric is pink silky rayon/cotton/lycra jersey. The directions I'm using for the lining are here:

http://www.timmelfabrics.com/liningateeshirt.htm

I just bought a shirt with a peasant neckline. The fabric is a slightly stretchy jersey. The neckline is simply serged and hemmed, with some elastic inside theres a bound notch in the front (a little v) and a tie at the top of the notch. I might try to recreate it.