Thanks Familyman...

No better way for me to say this, so here's the entire Familyman e-newsletter for this week.
Thanks Todd for making me feel a little better as I fight the urge to avoid the kids this weekend...(I'm being honest...)

Hey Dad,
Sorry for getting this to you so late this week. I’ve been behind the ball, and the fruit flies are back. I’m telling you, these little goomers appear out of nowhere. You leave half a banana on the counter, and the next thing you know, boom! You have an infestation. Well, I didn’t mean to burden you with my hardships, but I do want to wish you a happy Labor Day and to tell you to make it a good’un.
Labor Day is a bittersweet weekend, signaling the end of summer and the beginning of school and routine. Not that that’s all bad, but it still feels kind of sad to me. But thankfully we have a holiday to ease our pain.
In fact, today we’re heading over to my in-law’s lake cottage for a couple of days of last summer fun. We’ll swim in the noticeably colder water, eat watermelon, and sit on the porch talking while the kids play in the notably colder water. All the while, I’ll be thinking about how the summer is over, fall is right around the corner, and that I’ve got an infestation of fruit flies in my home.
I’ve also been thinking about the somewhat-annual backyard camping trip that needs to happen in the next couple of weekends before the nights turn really cold. I’m not sure we’ve pitched the tent in our yard in the last two years, but I know it’s time to get it out. The kids love it. They love the smell of the tent, the warmth of the fire, and the frigid cold in the morning.
I don’t love it---but I love them and what happens when we camp in the backyard. If you want the painfully honest truth, I don’t really love most of what my kids love doing. I don’t love playing kickball, going on bike rides, hosting the Wilson Olympics, or having pillow fights in the familyroom.
BUT---I do love my children and they LOVE doing all that stuff---with ME.
So, Dad, make this Labor Day a good’un. Play hard, camp in the backyard, take a canoe trip down a creek, go for a long-promised bike ride, go to the mall to do some serious back-to-school clothes shopping, or whatever else it is that your children would love to do with you.
Yeah, I know you don’t love doing those things---but I know you do love them.

You ‘da dad,
Todd

Looking unto the hills,

homeschooldaddy

Time's Up

A rare morning post.

I know I just wrote that 5 AM was too early to be getting up to work out, but I immediately realized after writing that most of the time I'd be up by 6 anyway, so it was a bit disingenuous. This morning I awoke, tried to go to the family room where I have my devotional time, and found it buried in papers and things to file. So in order to put God first, I had to clean up the area where I meet Him. I think there's a lesson in that somewhere.

As for homeschooling, I've come to the conclusion that I have to get on the ball concerning the kids' academic choices this year. We've kind of done it backwards in that they've already chosen extra curricular activities - Marcus is taking Public Speaking, Guitar, Ceramics, and Sports at our Friday classes at Riverside, while Naomi opted for 'Miami CSI' (forensics), Baton Twirling and Cake Decorating - but I'm still undecided on our core curricula. Language Arts still seems to be Naomi's Achilles' heel. I've taken a close look at Sonlight and Four in a Row, but I'm not convinced there's enough of the intergration between literature and critical thinking that I'd like to see. My approach has always been to avoid the mundane workbook style questions you see in so many texts. In the last workbook I bought for her, I found sentences that seemed to come right out of a UN manifesto, like"The four countries agreed to make a treaty to reduce pollution" (reference to Kyoto). Meanwhile, not one sentence referred to a business or to someone working in the private sector.

Since public school is now in session, the pressure begins to keep up, even as I try to maintain our own pace and direction. I'm glad to say that my wife fills in the gap while I rummage through the decision making process. She finds review work through ABCTeach.com and other sites that keeps them busy for the first two weeks. The tricky thing about unit studies is not running into points where you cover subjects but not skills, so my effort will be to combine the two as well as possible. I'll be sure to post after I finish my research and make a decision - I'd love some comments or suggestions from anyone who's in the same boat I am.

Looking unto the hills,

homeschooldaddy

Scattershot Thoughts...

Just feel like letting off some steam...

• Let me say it so that I can take the criticism now. I don't care how engaging Obama is. Charisma doesn't make you a leader. It makes you easier to follow. There's a difference.
• It's no longer 15 minutes of fame that is the claim of every person, as Andy Warhol said. It's the 15 seconds every person will devote to perfect strangers that have a web page, Twitter account or Facebook. Add those 15 seconds together, and everyone is famous for about 3 days.
  
• Yes, I want to work out and be fit. No, I don't want to get up at 5 AM to do it.
  
• Did you know the inventor of 'Pringles' Vacuum Can was cremated and buried in one?
  
• I'm at a weird place in my life. I watch 'Family Guy' and 'American Masters' with equal fervor.
  
• Why be sad about the end of the Olympics? I can watch "Ninja Warrior" for weeks and see more of the "Thrill of Victory, and the Agony of Defeat".
  
• Besides, does anybody know what happened to that skier that flew off the ski jump in the opening sequence of Wide World of Sports? Did he ever get any royalties? How did it feel to have millions of people equate your worst moment as the visual definition of defeat?
  
• It is the hardest thing to have a conversation with someone and not accidentally talk over each other, so one has to say, "No, you go ahead." It's like we need conversational traffic signals. Red light, you talk. Green light, I talk. Or maybe a conversation referee.
  
• Great idea Washington, that whole making corn into gas ethanol thing. Never thought instead of holding back on gas, I should hold back on Corn Flakes to decrease demand.
  
• I heard how Madonna compared John McCain to Hitler. How is it that stars can make a living insulting the pants off of people, and then sue someone for libel because someone reported something they didn't like in US Weekly?
  
• It's amazing that after 10 years, I still haven't determined the fastest way to drive to work. It's like the never ending experiment. In ten years Einstein had e=mc2, but I can't tell if the Turnpike or US1 or Marlin is the fastest way to 152nd.
  
• Don't forget to vote today here in Miami. The issues on the ballot (Children's Trust, State Rep., etc.) are way more pertinent to our daily lives than the guy in the house on Pennsylvania Ave.
  

Looking unto the hills,

homeschooldaddy

More Atlanta Pics....Courtesy of Naomi's Photography, Inc.

Welcome Here Park... a fitting name for a family reunion picnic.

Partners in crime - Naomi, Brianna (cousin), Marcus at downtown diner

Georgia Dome - or is it geodeisic?

World of Coca - Cola - we waited 1 hour and paid $100 to be advertised to. America is amazing.

The Paul Men - Justin, Me, Dad

Marcus, Aunt Lillie, Chris (trying to dodge being photographed)

Marcus and Miki (rock that orange, girl!)

My mom, "Dear", always smiling...right?

Abigail, my niece (doesn't she look like there should be a patch over on eye and a parrot on her shoulder?)

Aunt Lillie, beauty and sound mind

The photographer's self portrait at the family picnic. Good job, Naomi.


Looking unto the Hills,

homeschoooldaddy

Days of our School Lives...

Thank God for Public School. Yes, I said it.

As much as I denigrate public schooling at times for the burgeoning, bloated bueracracy that it is, I must admit no one was happier than me to see the first day of school come for my oldest, now a junior in high school. Tropical Storm Fay came along and gave all of Miami what we want most out of a storm - days off with no rain, wind, or roofs caving in. Well, maybe just a little wind and rain, and only the kids got the days off. So while Mom and Dad covered computers at work with trash bags, the kids watched more TV and stuffed themselves with more microwave pizza.

Needless to say, I was extremely conflicted. I was content to let Marcus and Naomi rest Monday and Tuesday and celebrate the fact that they weren't bound by the tyrannical school schedule. But when there was no school schedule to base our celebration around, and no standard times for me to measure our work against - I usually try to have the kids assignments done in time for after school tutoring, which was cancelled - I was hit with the realization that the school schedule does provide a basis in which I as a homeschooler have a structure set up for me. Even our summer vacations are simply an extension of the normal public school vacations, and most of the time I simply use the school calendar holidays as holidays for my kids as well. It just makes it easier to track when I don't have two calendars to keep up with.

So am I a hypocrite? No, probably just lazy. I know if I had more administrative skill I could have my own highly personalized schedule for our family learning. But it makes more sense for our blended educational family to use the standard timelines of the school, so we always have continuity in our day to day planning. I don't know if this works for others, but it works for us.

As for this year, I'm not yet settled on Naomi's language arts program. I'm somewhere between adopting a total curriculum and simply buying a subject area concentration from Alpha Omega or Sonlight. The beginning of school yesterday seemed to underscore the need for me to hurry up and choose, but the sight of Naomi doing her own practice through internet games was enough to comfort me that that tyrannical schedule doesn't have to take away our ability to move at our own pace.

Looking unto the hills,

homeschooldaddy

Me and the kids at FPEA, Orlando, Fl

trying out my Shozu Account!

The Joy of Reconnection

It's hard to return, but harder to stay away.

So much has transpired in the last few weeks, so it's best that I start with what's fresh, which is our family reunion experience in Atlanta. Just a weekend with 300 of my closest friends. I must admit I was a bit apprehensive as the trip neared at the beginning of August. After all, I remember very few of my relatives, and my last family reunion trip was more a blur than a memorable event. So, Miki, Christopher and I packed up and headed to Atlanta (which was a feat in itself considering our car's radiator died hours before leaving, forcing us into a rental van), and rehearsed the phrases we felt would protect us...
"I'm Laverna Johnson's first grandson..."
"I'm Reita's daughter in law...
"We're on the Williams side"...

Anything to remind our relatives that we really belonged.

Upon arrival, our first sight was the giddy faces of Marcus and Naomi, freshly spoiled by my parents - the new video game hasn't arrived yet, but I'm sure the kids will remind them to ship it - and hugs all around for my parents, my sister and niece, and my aunts that had arrived. We then found ourselves in the hotel ballroom with about 100 of the first arrivals, where we met up with the family choir and my cousin Marilyn, who was directing traffic for me music wise. Of course I had to play - it was my ticket into good graces with the family for missing so many reunions. (Just kidding.)

I could talk more about the goings on - the picnic, the dance where my parents and (gasp) my wife and I danced while grandkids and kids gawked and gagged at the sight of romantic adults (how do they think they got here?), the bickering of the family business meeting, or other memories. But most of all I was filled with a sense of belonging, of once again knowing I have roots in something larger, bigger, and more expansive than my little life here in Miami.

Confession.

These posts became scarce as I began considering big changes in our family life and lifestyle, and I began to fear writing. Mostly because this became a safe place to air my feelings and frustrations, I was terrified that when thinking of change and opening myself to the possibilities publicly on paper, I would lose that sense of honesty in trying to protect my readers (and myself) from the sense of uncertainty that such a reflection would bring. But with a few sermons and a reflection period, I realize that without such a opening to new horizons, there could be no real benefit in being reconnected. How could I have such a strong foundation, a family stretching 6 generations, and not at least give the next generation an example of fortitude in the face of change and challenge? My ancestors do not loom large as intimidators, but as
examples of how far life can take you even when you don't realize it at the time.
Knowing I'm at one of those points - where my present is as tenuous and tender as my future - gives me even more reason to hang on to the foundations of my past. To know that my city of residence, my career, or my current calling don't change what made me what I am now, and changing any of those first conditions will not change the root of who I will be. It is all based on the connections already made in my faith and my family that ensure that my success will be permanent even if my circumstances change.

I'll have much more info on the reunion, not that I got the heavy stuff out. I'll attach pictures soon.

Looking unto the hills,

homeschoooldaddy