Organically Inclined

I have avoided writing about the “socialization” of my homeschoolers for a very long time. Mostly because I think it’s a dumb argument. Sorry - am I being too blunt? Just because I educate my children at home (I actually do not like the word homeschool, as it denotes that I would do something like a school - when I strive for the opposite), does not mean that they are unsocialized wild children. I do not keep them in a box, isolated from all of humanity.

In fact, my homeschoolers have more of a social life than I do - OK, that’s not saying much, but you see my point!

Once upon a time, when I first took my then-youngest child out of school, a teacher came to me and said “I can see why, academically, you’d take him out of school, but what about the social aspect?”
Um…excuse me? Did you just say what I thought you said? Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the original intention of school to educate children? To concentrate on the academic stuff? Oh, right, I forgot, the original intention of school was actually to help create good little factory workers and give a place to keep kids until they were “old enough” to work…but more on that another time.

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Did you know that 40 percent of the electricity your TV, computer monitors, XBox and all those devices use is used while they are “off?” I didn’t! I though I was being green when I shut them down. Turns out, they are just standing by…hardly very green.

I’ve tried to reduce our use of paper by going electronic. I publish my newsletter electronically now. I read my favorite magazines in PDF format. I pay my bills online. I have my kids write their papers and submit them to me by email. But if the energy I use negates my efforts to save trees, then how can I justify it?

Thankfully, my husband John (geek-extraordinaire) is just as worried about the environment as I am. So he helped me find ways to make our digital life just as green as our analog one.

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This was published last Friday, but I didn’t see it until this morning. This is good news for California Homeschoolers who were fighting a battle over whether or not homeschooling parents had to be certified teachers.

The appellate court concluded that “…California impliedly allows parents to home school as a private
school, but has provided no enforcement mechanism. As long as the local school
district verifies that a private school affidavit has been filed, there is no provision for
further oversight of a home school. It appears that the propriety of any parent’s home
schooling will arise only in dependency (or family law) proceedings, as in this case, or
in a prosecution for failing to comply with the compulsory education law.”

The whole decision is here.

If you have a half hour, take the time to read the whole thing - it’s very interesting.

I had a wonderful picture that Liam took of our abundance of blueberries, but Daisy the dog literally chewed through the camera’s adapter cable, so you’ll just have to imagine…

I picked about five pounds of blueberries Sunday (between rain storms) and have several pounds already frozen. I did give away a few pounds to my best buddy…but I don’t think we’ll be lacking! I love blueberries because you can do a lot with them - even if my family very rarely eats them raw. We still love to have blueberry muffins and pancakes in the morning (instead of cold cereal) and I like having the blueberries around for all sorts of desserts. I also put them in oatmeal and homemade granola bars.

I’m going to  dry the next batch. I got this information on drying blueberries from the University of Alaska Extension Service:

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I should look it up, but it seems that there has not been a dry day yet this summer here in Central Vermont! I have only taken the kids swimming twice at a friend’s pool - and we usually go to a nearby lake DAILY, and we haven’t been once. The temp has been 80 or lower and rain, rain, rain. And not like little showers - we’re talking heavy driving rain and huge claps of thunder and lightning. Scary stuff.

The ground is now so saturated that people are flooding in a lot of low-lying areas. Fortunately, this does not affect us too much. We sit high on a hill, but my garden is feeling the effects. It is so weedy! I just don’t want to spend hours out there in the pouring rain. I try to be very adventurous about it, but as soon as I hear thunder, I run inside! I’m terrified of thunder of lightning - always have been. We are actually very fortunate for the rain, also, because we have 30 foot dug well that supplies our family’s drinking and washing water.

There have been a few years where the well has gotten dangerously low and I would pray for a good rain. Not this year! We may not be able to swim at the lake - but Mama gets a shower everyday!

It’s strange though, because my husband reminded of “An Inconvenient Truth,” where Gore says that global

warming might not be felt as a massive heatwave for everyone - for some of us, we might be getting a new rain forest! I feel like I moved to Seattle.

Oh well, even if it’s a little water-logged, the broccoli is growing and the peas are still coming and the pumpkins are taking over!

I was surfing around the blogosphere this morning - trying to wake up - and came across this site: HonestMeat.com.

What a great site. And as I read this post about cruelty to horses - I was compelled to share.

Hi Readers,

Over the last week, the our Hughesnet satellite has been down. Nine days without Internet - it was almost painful, although I got a lot of gardening done and a lot of writing done in my new book. I am happy to see there are a lot of new visitors! I hope you’ll keep coming back! New articles will be posted starting tomorrow, August 1.

All best,

Michelle Kennedy Hogan

Dear OI Readers:

Thank you so much to all of you who entered the Comment to Win contest this month. I have randomly selected a winner - her name is Christene and she commented on a couple of posts, including a recent post about 10 Uses for Olive Oil.

I have contacted her by email and will be sending her a package which includes the OI Tote Bag, several of my books, and a variety of green cleaning products.

I am considering making the comment contest a monthly thing…so keep a look out!

Thanks to all who entered, I’ve appreciated your comments and good wishes!

Best,

Misha

I’m sorry. This will sound very unfeminist of me - but as I get older I realize just how unfeminist I truly am! I just read this article on Night Nannies on The New York Times and let me say that I am appalled. Now, not only are more and more children being shunted out the door to daycare at a younger and younger age, but now their parents can’t even get up with their baby in the middle of the night.

I’m not going to go into how bad this lack of interest in one’s children is - there are plenty of people who have done that already. Let me just say that I don’t understand why people who don’t want to hang out with their children even bother to have them. I’m sorry that waking up in the middle of the night to nurse or comfort your wee one is too much of a strain for you. I know your life and sleep are so much more important. Wake up people - they are only this tiny once in their life! Enjoy that time to snuggle - and catch up on your David Letterman watching. And if you don’t want to do the job of parenting…don’t become a parent. It’s not difficult. And it’s not a job that needs to be outsourced.

by Melanie Bowden
Everyone’s heard of recycling, but what about precycling?Also known as source reduction, precycling is reducing the amount of trash you generate in the first place.Not only can you lower trash going to your local landfill, but you can save money to boot.
You can save as much as $3,000 a year by being more aware of your shopping habits and always buying the largest size your household can use.According to the Save Money and the Environment Too campaign, buying in large sizes saves a family of four $175 a year on apple juice and $118 a year on cereal, while producing 50 percent less waste.On average, individual oatmeal and cereal packs cost three times as much per serving, and cookie and chip packages twice as much per serving, when compared to the large sizes.
Stay-at-home mom Lisa Horton found the statistics surprising.“I didn’t realize it was that substantial a savings,” she says.“I do buy in bulk and it helps, but I could do more–like use more reusable items.I think making the public aware of little things they can do is really important. Read the rest of this entry »