Toddler Pictures

Keola's First Violin Concert

When J Keola was six, we took the kids to see a piano/violin concerto. He was fascinated by the expressive violinist and he played "air violin" in his seat during most of the performance. Ever since, he's wanted to play the violin. I figured it was a passing fancy, but for years he kept asking for violin lessons. Four months ago, we finally found a teacher and he started taking lessons. He had his first concert/recital last night and he did very well!

Look, there he is!

21st Carnival of Homeschooling!

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The 21st Carnival of Homeschooling cordially invites you to a
Progressive Dinner Party hosted at Principled Discovery.

Dress is casual.

Invite a friend and enjoy the food, travel and conversation
as we get to know each other a little better.
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Wallpaper: Purple Flowers

My current wallpaper. I took the photo about a month ago and did a lot of post-processing on the computer.

(Click on the image for larger--1024 x 768--resolution.)

Educational Reform

"After sober and judicious consideration, and weighing one thing against another in the interests of reasonable compromise, H. L. Mencken concluded that a startling and dramatic improvement in American education required only that we hang all the professors and burn down the schools. His uncharacteristically moderate proposal was not adopted. Those who actually knew more about education than Mencken did could see that his plan was nothing more than cosmetic and would in fact provide only an outward appearance of improvement."

- Richard Mitchell, The Graves of Academe

After the Storm: Reflection

Puzzle out what hidden symbolism you want. It's a stump, a puddle, and a bunch of clouds. :D

A First Written Narration

My youngest son ("Kahoa") just started written narrations this term. This is his first one, he wrote it last month, when he was nine. I asked him if it would be okay to post it here and he chose the one he thought was his best one. The last sentence is in my own handwriting, he had asked me to add that. And this was from a period where he had just seen a Veggie Tales video and was apparently very impressed by it. ;) He signed all of his schoolwork "Larry Boy" for a couple of weeks.

This is from A Child's History of the World by Virgil Hillyer, the chapter about "John Whom Nobody Loved."

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John was bad and no one like'd him. One time John wantid a frend to be a bishop but the Pope saed that he did'nt want him to be and said that he would close all the churchis. So John chos his frend and the Pope did what he said. Now the people hateid John and John was scard. The Baron put John in prison. John was unwillingly made to sign the Magna Carta by the Baron.

the end
by Larry Boy!

My Non-CM Diet

Charlotte Mason suggested moderation and balance in all things, and warned against fad diets. Here's what she had to say about fad diets (I've paraphrased her words, but you can read them in her original here and here)

Vol 4 Book I pg 193: We can be moderate without going on a narrow diet (we don't need to live on things like apples and nuts). In fact, moderation might best be practiced by eating a moderate portion of whatever food is set in front of us . . .

Vol 4 Book 2 pg 18: Conscience isn't as concerned with how immoderation is manifested in our lives so much as the underlying principle behind moderation. St. Paul wrote about it when he condemned people who 'worship and serve the creature more than the Creator.' It's by this principle that we'll be justified or condemned. In light of this, we have good reason to suspect any style of diet or exercise that encourages us to have too much concern for our physical body, whether it's a diet of nuts and fruit, peacock brains, or cock-a-leekie. England is in serious danger of giving herself over to worship of the goddess of health. But a more elusive goddess was never revered--the more she is pursued, the more she runs away. Yet she's ready and willing to bestow smiling favor on the person who never even casts a thought towards her. I say truthfully and sincerely that the pursuit of physical and mental well-being is becoming a cult. The danger of this kind of cult is that it makes us focus our attention on our own selves instead of on Christ.

Meanwhile, I'm a week into a recommitment of my nuts and fruit diet. LOL! I'd been doing a raw diet for a few months, then got lax about it for the last few months - still doing a lot of green smoothies, but indulging a lot in wheat-free, non-dairy, mostly vegetarian "other foods", too. (soy 'chickin nuggets', Orville Redenbacher Smart Pop popcorn, Peanut butter on Newman's Own wheat-freechocolate cookies - mmmmm!) It was starting to take a toll in my energy level, so I'm going back to the strict raw diet.

Moderation in her world meant three meals of hormone-free meat, sides of vegetables and bread without preservatives. In our culture, it could mean anything from a boxed breakfast cereal with pasteurized hormone-laced milk and sugar-sweetened juice, to a burger with hormone-laced beef on a chemically laden white-flour bun and a side of potato strips fried in hydrogenated fat. Balance and moderation in itself is no doubt a fine thing, but in a world that encourages excess in the wrong foods, dependence on processed foods, pesticides and hormones added to foods, with the resulting food allergies, immunity issues and food addictions, moderation can become a mammoth feat, and existing health problems sometimes need more than a determination to not think about food, and to only eat what's put in front of you. Especially if you're the cook.

Oh, my. I wonder what Charlotte would have thought about this Bug Banquet featuring dishes like mealworm pasta and chocolate chirp cookies?

One More Butterfly

It's coming along. It has to do with angles, I think. I just need to figure out where the angles are.

There's two sides of a triangle between the tops of the wings, and each top wing is an odd shaped triangle. And the bottom wings have points that need to match up.

Drawing Butterflies

Miss Moana asks me to draw butterflies for her a lot, and I'm tired of doing pitiful round-wing things. So I've decided to learn how to draw a butterfly. I traced one from our field guide to get the shape and I've been trying to practice. It's not easy, I can't get it right, but this is only the first day. These were done on Paint where I could flip and superimpose the left side to the right to get them exactly symetrical. These are even on both sides, but still not right. Drawing it in pencil is a lot harder, and it's been a source of frustration to me today.