The Hectic Winter Season Has Started!

Ahhh, Winter! That relaxed quiet time -- NOT!

Okay, so yeah, all the leaves on the trees are gone, there are no more flowers, everything is asleep. We've had one snow (middle of October), and that's it. The weather report says we MAY get some tomorrow. We can only hope! It's just so brown and gray looking -- except for our gorgeous blue sky!

We're heavy into hockey and chess now, which for me does NOT equal "quiet" and "relaxed". We have hockey practice three times a week, chess practice twice a week, and tournaments for both on weekends (usually requiring travel). When we have a conflict, I let Derek (my "little" son) choose, and he has always chosen chess over hockey so far.

CHESS: Derek has already taken home a 2nd-place and a 7th-place trophy in chess. Our third tournament will be December 2, hosted by us here in Taos. Whenever we host, us parents work -- reporting table, sales of chess paraphernalia, and a concession stand. Even though it's a lot of work, I like it because it makes the time go faster!

For you people that have never been to a chess tournament, it's really boring for the spectators. All we do is sit around all day waiting for our kids to come out and tell us how they did in the game. There are usually 4 to 5 games in a day, and each game takes anywhere from one to two hours (depends upon "game time"). I take a book, my crocheting, sometimes my laptop (if I know I can plug in and have wireless internet). Some parents who know how to play chess pretty well (unlike me who doesn't even know how to move the pieces!), do enjoy getting a pass and going in to observe some of the games. But most of us either don't know how to play chess, or don't know even half of what our kids know about the game. So we sit... and sit... and sit. And wait... and wait... and wait. And when our kids come out, we praise them for a "good game" and cluelessly listen as our child recites all their moves and strategies.

HOCKEY: We've had two games (one missed because of chess). We just hosted our annual 3-day Thanksgiving Tournament, and Derek's team just won First Place! WOO-HOO! Now, this is a big deal because none of our Taos teams have won First in several years in our own tournament. It was a fight (especially with the El Paso team that came up), but WE DID IT!

And what's more amazing is that our goalie broke her wrist and couldn't play. We hadn't had a chance to suit-up and train another kid yet to be a back-up, so we just took the first kid who volunteered and suited him up. He had one practice before the first game of the tournament! Derek, who plays both offense and defense, was kept on defense with another of his team mates, who, when they play together, make an almost impenetrable defense! *whew* And Derek still scored several goals!

HOMESCHOOL: After being at it for a little over a year, both of us are FINALLY settling in! By this I mean we are both more relaxed and not as anxious about whether he is learning "enough". I have learned that this feeling is very common among new homeschoolers. Because the time is not filled with a lot of busywork and workbooks, it just seems that the learning part just couldn't be there. But it most certainly is!

We use the Robinson Curriculum, but learn history chronologically (which is "classical" teaching). I have added Writing Strands for Derek to work through with no corrections on my part. I plan to just have him keep going through Writing Strands to pick up what he needs to know. But his writing has always been very good, and seems to be getting better -- probably because of maturity, and probably partly because some of the stuff he's picking up in Writing Strands. He's whizzing through his new math text (it's mainly review right now), but I'm having him do all the practice problems instead of testing him out of lessons. When he gets to a point where it's harder and new, I'll slow him down and have him do just one full lesson again.

Okay, here's a really great accomplishment. We don't have TV or video games, remember. Derek is FINALLY starting to explore and find other things to do to occupy himself when he is done with school -- like go through all our science experiment books and do all the experiments! And he's set himself up on his own schedule! HE wants to start his schooling at 8 a.m., and wants me to get him up by 7 so he can eat and do all his chores before 8! Even though he's naturally up in plenty of time, I think I need to get him an alarm clock to encourage that independence.

Another thing that I've noticed that has made me more relaxed is watching Derek's friends as they do their homework. What they're doing is basically busywork. And I'm not seeing any point in doing that other than making it look like they're learning something. My attitude about why we left the public schools is changing -- from "I don't want Derek in that environment" to "why didn't I homeschool sooner?" The education that Derek is getting compared to public (even private) schools is awesome! And it's so simple, so relaxing, so nice to have him here at home where our lives are so OUR lives! Our standards and expectations are OURS. And they are MUCH higher than the schools I'm finding out.

Here's an example: even though the schools are publically announcing how they are "raising the standards", they're not. The history, science and social studies texts are constantly being "dumbed down". I looked at some of these for Derek's grade level this summer (the new ones for the up-coming year), and the fifth grade texts are written to about the first grade reading level! To say I am appalled is an understatement. The vocabulary is simple (almost babyish), and the sentence structure is simple sentences. It's like they were writing to babies. What an insult to the students who will be using these texts! And, to top it off, all those texts contain is snippets of information. I can't see where the kids will really be learning anything substantial -- unless they're just guidelines for the teacher to input tons of info.

THE SOUTHWEST SHOP: I've got a new shopping cart! And I think it's working, because I've already had some orders that seemed to go off without a hitch!

Because I've taken up crocheting again, I've got some cool stuff there. And Jake (my oldest "prospector" son) is back into making "stuff" from his rocks. He ADORES rocks! This year he is into making some spectacular vases out of stone -- some of that stone being valuable and hard to find. So the vases are basically priced according to the price or availability of the stone.

The Southwest Shop on eBay is doing "okay". I'm tempted to not list as much stuff there because of the fee increase this summer, which I feel was rather steep. Most of the stuff I've got listed on eBay is higher priced than my web site simply because of the eBay fees. And eBay's site is just not very user friendly any more. It's not that it doesn't work any more, it's just that I have to do so many "work arounds" to get the same thing accomplished. There are buttons that don't work, not everything shows up in search consistently, not all my inventory consistently shows up when you go to my store, etc. It's just not very efficient any more. And each time I've reported something, I get a "canned" response, or I'm made to feel it's somehow my fault (or my computer's), or the response has nothing to do with my complaint. I've also found that if I report too many things, eBay just flat out doesn't respond any more. It's like they have a quota about how many complaints you can file. My dad used to say, "The difference between an A and a C is in the details." Well, I would grade eBay about a C-. There. I've done my share of complaining about eBay! LOL!


Hope everyone had a great Turkey Day! Until next time!