"Honorable" Intentions (Part II)

This post is part two of my Saturday as an Honor Flight guardian. To see the first part, head over here... Then read on below!

During the bus ride down into the city, I sat next to a man who was 80. He had been married to his wife for 65 years! I was so impressed with that. He told me that he almost had cancelled his trip because his wife had reached for his hand in bed earlier that week and they held hands for a while, he said, just stroking each others' fingers, and the next morning, his daughter came to check in on them to find his wife had lapsed into a coma. In spite of that, he had come at his daughter's insistence and showed me a picture of Morgan's Surrender Sword (from the Civil War,) that he said he had dug up out of his yard. He told me other things as well, but he was a little difficult to hear at times because of the bus's engine being so loud.

We left off at the wonderful D.C. traffic jam in part one. I must say that those Honor Flight folks are right on the ball - once we broke through the main traffic jam, which was unavoidable, really, they managed to get National Park Police (Thanks, guys!) to come out and give us a police escort into the closed-off streets of D.C. so we could park right there next to the WWII Monument.

That part was fantastic and mighty helpful! Our "bus" (five replacement vans) alone held twelve wheelchair veterans that needed to be unloaded, gotten into their chairs, taken for latrine/head/bathroom calls and then to visit their monument. The crowds were unbelievable! We did get everyone unloaded (can I just say that I really was taken by how soft their hands were - like a newborn babies' hands) and headed for the bathrooms that were built alongside the WWII Monument. For once, I was glad to be on the girls' side! Normally the line out the door comes from the women's room, Saturday there were around 40 male veterans waiting for the men's facilities! We finally decided to speed things up a bit and did as the ladies do when the situation is reversed: we commandeered the women's room and siphoned some of the men that way. Trust me when I say that some of these guys looked about as uncomfortable as a pregnant woman waiting to go!

We did get some dirty looks from a few protesters who wanted into the ladies' room and whom we asked to wait. Meanwhile, to the side of the permanent restroom fixture, there were at least 30 port-a-potties that had been set up specifically for the protestors to use. I finally emerged from guarding the bathroom door until all of our men came out and it warmed my heart to hear three medics nearby (on hand in case of anyone getting hurt in the protests from heat exhaustion or whatever) ... discussing ... the protestors who had complained about our use of the ladies' room for the vets. Their take on it was that the port-a-potties were set up specifically for the protestors and that the vets who had fought in the war should have had every use of the restrooms that went with their monument. Made me smile.

My group had one Columbus guardian, myself, and three vets - one in a wheelchair, two walkers. When I got out of the restroom duty, they had disappeared. Crap. So I headed for the Monument itself to try to find them. What a mess! I will not ruin my commentary any more than needed talking about the behaviour of many of the protestors toward our veterans. That will be for a follow-on post that I have plans for. But suffice to say that finding my little group of four was going to be nearly impossible. So I grabbed a vet who had lost his group and we walked around the pool and he told me stories about the war, his wife and his garden back home. He was lovely to be with.

As we rounded off the circuit, we found his Columbus Guardian and he went back to his group. I remained behind, both looking for my group and helping "make a hole" (path) for the vets to move through the waves of protestors moving by. The man who started Honor Flight was on hand to help out and welcome the vets as well and they did have several tourists who stopped our men to ask for their pictures and shake hands. The men took group photos in front of the wall of stars, they shared their stories and laughed as they remembered the past. Some of the men even made mock passes at the ladies - they were mighty sweet. Mine gave me a kiss on my cheek and told me I was pretty. Flatterer.

More in part 3 - this part seems long enough for now! ....

A Matter of Honor... Part One

This last Saturday, I had the opportunity to help out in a program called Honor Flight. Regardless of where you are, I imagine there are ways to help, so it would be great of you to click the link above and check them out. This post is about my day with a wonderful group of World War II veterans coming to Washington, D.C., for a one-day trip from Columbus, Ohio.

I am going to start by saying that part of the reason I volunteered to do Honor Flight today was because I needed a good way to spend a Saturday and get away from some serious problems that I've been involved with in our church. The problems are out of my control, but no less worrisome and sad. This day was one of the best cures I could ever have experienced. I loved every minute of it and will definitely go help again - without waiting for a day when I need a distraction!

The day started out early, well, for a Saturday, anyway. I was supposed to be at the airport to "mingle" with the other "Guardians" who had worked with Honor Flight before, get questions answered, and get our passes to go past security to the gate. All of the people who were there to help the vets were called "Guardians.") I arrived a little early so that I could go to Subway and get a sandwich for my lunch. I could have paid $6 for a boxed lunch from Arby's, but that doesn't work so well for a vegetarian! As I stood there waiting in the Subway line, I was acutely aware of the time ticking by, making me late. One guy was texting, one guy was standing at the register, neither said a word to me! Finally, the guy texting stopped, and began to scrub vigorously on a cooker of some sort. I was pretty glad a few minutes later when the guy at the register was the one to come make my sandwich! (That's a side-rant. I add it in now to illustrate my hectic morning - there was so much more to the morning, but too detailed to put on one blog post!)

Once I joined up with the Honor Flight group, they checked off my name and gave me a pass to get past security. Honor Flight has been operating for about five years now and so have a pretty good working relationship with BWI by now. It made things much easier! They had already made arrangements for us to bypass the loooooong security lines and go through the section for employees and flight personnel. We still had to remove our shoes, etc., but it was still much faster that way.

Once we reached the gate (A-2 in our case,) we lined up with the uniformed military personnel who had come out from Ft. Meade positioned closest to the door where the vets would emerge from the plane. As they exited the plane, each one was cheered and applauded, hands were shaken all down the line and pictures were snapped. One vet in an old Navy hat, with a black ring around the top rim (a special designator, no longer in use, as I understand it,) wanted to have a picture with all of the Navy guys there.

Once we had all the men - and a few ladies! - off of the plane, with their escorts from Columbus, we headed out of the secure area to wait for our three buses, which would take us to Washington, D.C. There were protests going on in DC Saturday - an "Anti-Tea Party" rally and a gay pride parade, I believe, so I wondered how we were going to get these old boys close enough to the monuments that they would be able to walk the distance. I needn't have worried!

One bus broke down (the one for yours truly, of course!) so after some wrangling, we herded our guys with their Columbus Guardians onto five transport vans and headed off down I-295. We were going along at a pretty quick pace until we hit construction and Rally traffic just past I-495, which runs around the perimeter of Washington, D.C. Then we bogged down for about 20 or 25 minutes.

To keep these posts from getting overwhelmingly long (I know I tend to be wordy!) I'll break this into a couple of sections. I so enjoyed the day that I want to get in as much detail as I can - with hopes of encouraging others to join us next time!

Improving self - body, mind, soul

Maestro has inspired me. He said a few weeks ago that he is really working to change and improve himself. He set some pretty specific goals, things like: keeping his room picked up, keeping a good attitude, getting all of his school work done each day. Thought he is not always successful, in many ways I can see the changes taking affect. My favorite is the goal for attitude change - maybe he'll prevent himself from having teen angst problems (fingers crossed here, People!)

I am so inspired by him that I've set some goals of my own to try to reach - goals to improve my body strength as this baby comes along, to sharpen my mind now that I'm "done" with school, and my soul as I move forward in my journey in faith. Following a rather vigorous walk with Buttercup in her stroller and two dogs on leashes, I have decided to share my goals here - maybe it will keep me accountable, who knows?

Start with the soul - it is the basis for everything real and important in life. At least, if I'm on top of my game, it should be! I am not to the point where I am reading my Bible every day as I should be, but I have at least increased my prayers and try to make sure I say them often. Reading anything is a luxury right now, so someday I'll get back into it.

Body is easier than mind, sort of, and being pregnant, so important right now! I've started taking vitamins (a huge thing for me, as many know!) and taking walks nearly every day with Buttercup and the dogs. I try to keep my pace fast enough to get in some cardio. Can't do an hour a day yet, but it's a start! Cardio has long been one of my weakest points. From carrying my babies around, muscle strength has not been something I've worried about as much.

And mind... Well, I'm trying to keep up with improving in photography, have started this blog and am working on some new crochet projects. Perhaps more importantly, I've begun to weed out areas of life and volunteer things that are no longer fulfilling for me or that do not help me become a better person. I've stopped so many of the e-mail ads that I signed up for (Staples, Borders, etc.) I don't need to know about every sale, special or event that comes along. The ones I'm really interested in, I have a pretty good idea of when they will come about and can look them up for specific dates (educator's weekend at Borders, for instance.)

There are my three plans of attack, set in the stone of the Internet forever-land. Nothing ever gets erased here, or so I've been told, so I'll be able to look back in six months and see where I am in all of this. Mmmm... hope that's a good thing!

Teachers who Were and Who Were "Almost"

I had it suggested that I create a post a about some of the teachers that I remember from my own school years. As it happens, I made one as a FaceBook note quite some time back. I'm transferring that here now. Enjoy!

This thought occurred to me the other day:

In high school, I had an AP (Advanced Placement - do they still do those classes??) history class. The teacher was a great teacher and the class got into some of the most interesting conversations. The instructor would let it go on for some time - three or four minutes, maybe five? - and then would say, "But we digress..." and thereby bring the class back to the topic at hand. I learned a lot in that class.

But I could have learned more. In large part, I didn't learn as much as I could because of my own lack of effort, and though he was a good teacher, he didn't push us for more. Instead, he gave us lots of room to explore and discuss (helpful in adult discussions and debates, not so much for history!)

I had a Japanese class at the same school. Very nice teacher - one of my favorites. He was a new teacher, still very green and looking to save-the-world-through-teaching. He started a hiking club and I joined - he tried to encourage my vocabulary acquisition by quizzing me as we hiked through the woods and up the hills. The club didn't last long, unfortunately and I am not sure where the teachers is now.

A third teacher - longer in the tooth, taught English, had very definite and high expectations, or gave the appearance of it. She tried to make it so her higher grades were hard to get, but there was still always the feeling of who-were-her-favorites.

These teachers all stand out in my mind and memory - and for me, that is a big leap, I don't seem to have a whole lot of memory space left (can somebody hand me my RAM, please??) But each of these represents something else in my memory - teachers who were "almost."

Finally, my junior high band teacher. Definitely long on the tooth - he was the band teacher when my (ahem...) MOTHER was at the same junior high 20 years before. But he will always stand out for me. He was the teacher who held us to high standards; who expected we had practiced, stopped us in front of the other students and said that what we were doing wasn't what it should have been. Who cared enough to be honest and tell us that we weren't giving it our all; that we weren't. Doing. Our. Best.

My last day of junior high - a place that I would NOT miss being at because of the students, not the teachers (many of whom I really admired and looked up to) - I went to his classroom and, of all the teachers, I went to say goodbye and I hugged him... and I cried. I didn't know where I was going or what was coming next, but I knew I was leaving behind a teacher who really made us feel like he cared about us enough to say that we could do better.

As a home schooling mom, I hope that I will be that teacher - the man from my junior high band (Mr. Sorenson, for those in the know). I hope that my own children - and their friends - will look at Mrs. Edens and say, "She cared enough to hold us to standards and to make us reach for the stars, even as she gave us the stepladder to get there."

Is that too much to ask?

No regrets

I have lived much of my life by one series of thoughts:

Every decision I have made in life,
whether seemingly good at the time
or seemingly poor,
has led me to where I am now.

I have no regrets.

So I've decided to take a sort of "life inventory." Here are the stats for the last 18 years (I'll include pictures where I have them digitized.)

Began taking college classes (18 years ago)
Left high school and college for the Navy (16 years ago)
Got married (11 years ago)


Had our first son - Maestro (10 years ago - born the week before our 1st anniversary)

Left the Navy (9 years ago)
Sold Pampered Chef (8 years ago)
Had boy #2 - Smeagol (8 years ago)

Stopped selling Pampered Chef (8 years ago)
Moved from Georgia to Maryland
Joined the Orthodox Church

Visited Ireland (6 years ago)

Had boy #3 - Bruiser (5 years ago)
Began homeschooling Maestro

Worked as a mystery shopper (3 years ago)
Started a writing business from home
Began homeschooling Smeagol

Had our first baby girl (22 months ago)

Graduated from college after working at it for 18 years (9 months ago)

Now I am homeschooling all three boys, working on baby #5, finishing some big projects for my writing business, and enjoying the process of moving toward the next step in life. Still big on my dream sheet: earning a pilot's license - saving for that now!

This is the culmination of 20 years of work, patience and love from those around me. I can't wait to see what is next!

Homeschooling Adventures

Well, this week is the "Overlap Week" - the week when we're working our way up to a full homeschooling schedule and out of our summer relaxation. No more getting up at 9, no more Lego games until noon, no more free-wheeling days. This year promises to be a challenge if we're not organized. Maestro is in sixth grade this year and I'm a little nervous about the making sure we "cover all the bases." Is there ever a time when we parents are not worried about something?

Putting together a homeschool schedule can seem overwhelming at first - especially if you've never done it before, and sometimes even if you have! This is our fifth year homeschooling and I finally feel like I have somewhat of a clue. There are so many options out there now that weren't around even in the early 80's. Some of the questions I have grappled with seem to come up for all of us at some point: Do I use a boxed set, that includes everything? Do I put it together piece by piece at Borders? Do I enroll them in classes at a co-op? Do I have to be a fully hands-on teacher or overly creative and artistic?

I've gone through all of these. Each homeschooling family will come up with their own answers to these same questions. Below, you'll find some of the solutions that we find successful in our family. Throughout the year, I'll try to put updates on how well we're sticking to it and on some of our milestones and projects. This blog isn't entirely about homeschooling, but it is part of our lifes' journey. May our struggles inspire your journey and help your path be a little smoother.

After weeks without time, I've finally written out the boys' schedules. I have tried to make it both fun and comprehensive - and something they can fairly well follow on their own. Now that Maestro is 10 and "Junior High," I am trying to work him into taking on more responsibility for his schedule, work and chores so that he's well used to it all by the time we get to high school. By then, he should be keeping track of his own records as well.

Our oldest children tend to be our testers, don't they? Lucky boys!


So here is the schedule for Maestro this year - I hope it serves to inspire you and, if you've decided to homeschool, I hope it helps show that you don't have to go for the most expensive boxed-set curriculum. As a side note, for now I've decided against a boxed set because our boys each have their own strengths and are weaker in other areas. It just seems to me that a boxed set would make it more difficult to tailor the work to their needs. Not only that, but they are often more than I can afford for as many children as we have.

We will work four days a week, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesday is set aside for group PE and errands, Saturday and Sunday are days for family, friends and field trips.

Music: Guitar or Keyboard - 50 min./day - Fridays play a new song for Pop at dinner
Language Arts: 20 min/day - Both boys are working through an older version of Hooked on Phonics that is for advanced readers where they have a little card they read a story on and then answer questions about vocab, detail, etc. It starts out fairly simply, but by the end it is high school level.
* Art: 20 min./day - Pick one major artist each week:
Mon - look the artist up, write down major or interesting facts about that artist (birth day, year died, country, major medium, etc.)
Tues - Pick one major work of art by that artist and attempt to copy it as well as you can. Work on this the other three days of the week.
Math: 50 min/day -
Saxon math: we started out at a full chapter a day, but he is not ready for that in this program so he does 1/2 chapter each day, and checks his own work
* Science: up to 50 min/day - We have several science kits we have been given over time that we are working on using up. Might do this twice a week and spread it out a little so we can get more involved in each subject than just one day will allow.
Reading Comp./Vocabulary: 50 min/day - Maestro really likes to read so I've give him extra time for this. He is to work on one classic novel a week (more if he can but I really want him to delve into one). As he reads, he is to keep his notebook beside him and write down five new or lesser-known words a day, and their meanings, anything he finds of interest in the story or anything he might have a question about. I will also be looking up "book club" type questions for him to answer as he reads or to discuss with me. Once a week, he is to write out a one-page review of the book for me to put here on the blog.
* History: 50 min/day - We use Story of the World and the CD's. They are to listen to one or two chapter(s) a day (they're short on the CD, a little longer to read on their own), and work on the activities for that chapter(s) from the activity book.
* Social Studies/Geography: 20 min/day (might change to 50 later)
Mon. - look up one country (have suggested they look up the country of the artist they are working on), write down major info. about that country (imports/exports, capitol, etc.)
Tues - copy the map, color in the major landmarks, crops, cities, etc.
Thurs - Draw and color the flag and also the traditional dress for a boy and a girl
Friday - Read a traditional story/folk tale from that country and listen to one or two songs from that country.

Down the line we might make the country/artists bits into lapbooks or something equally cool if we have time to spare.

Once a month, we'll go on a field trip to a museum or someplace similarly cool.

The stuff with an * the boys do together.

Some may have noticed I didn't include PE specifically. Well, with all the time they spend with their friends each day, helping out with the house, keeping up with Buttercup and trips out, PE is one subject I'm not worried about scripting in! That should be a time of freedom and pleasure for the boys to choose their own activities. I've signed them up with the Catonsville Youth Baseball League and they'll do bowling or swimming through the year as well.

I hope that this helps you by giving you an idea of how one homeschooler's day goes. Enjoy the journey - it ends all too quickly!

Better for Boys

This morning, I was rudely awakened from a rather interesting dream. In the dream, I was staying in a hotel with some others - and for some reason we had several "extra guests" in this very nice hotel, so we had to move them from room to room to keep them from being discovered. That was just the weird part. The interesting part was happening to move by a table on which was laid a dozen different foods, mostly pastries and confections and snack-type foods, and one rather curious mailbox.

The food, it turned out, was quite tasty, but wholly organic and with very little in the way of sweeteners - "healthy" snacks. The mailbox was what has stuck in my mind though. It was blue and made of the same sort of material that is used on ranches to pen in the animals. A sturdier metal of some sort. It had hinges on either side, about mid-way down the body of the piece, as well as at the "regular" spot to allow the door to open and midway down the back panel. The side- and back-panel hinges were not the sort that allowed the pieces to open, but they allowed the box to "give" when pushed at (or hit.) Curiously - and I wasn't able to figure out the purpose for this part - there was a black sort of rubber "bumper" bar at the top of the front. The door was more squared off than the standard rounded top as well.

The company putting it out was called "Better for Boys" and their premise was to offer items that are better for their health (and would therefore, help keep more boys off of medication for ADHD diagnoses) or items that can stand up to the abuse a boy, or group of boys, puts on an object. I can imagine more of what might be sold by such a company: walls or wall paint that can stand up to graffiti (or that can wash itself!), the malleable mailbox, bunk beds that double as climbing walls... you get the idea (and the reminder that I have three boys of my own!)

Lord knows that with four children and a fifth coming, I don't have the resources currently to start such a company - but perhaps it would make a good future home school project to design some of these items! So barring a company to create and sell items such as these, the question then becomes is it good for us to offer boys items that will save them from their natural instincts? I mean this question more in the sense of offering them items they can all-but destroy vs. teaching them, and expecting them, to have self-mastery and self-control over their natural impulses to act out in ways that make items such as these necessary and tempting to society's young men.

I would not suggest that it is never right for boys to be boys. When ours were young - very young - they were climbers (and still are!) To keep them moderately safe, we went to IKEA (marvelous place for some things, including kids' toys!) and bought a ladder designed to be attached to an interior wall, along the studs. We put this in their room right next to the book shelf, so they can pull out their books without pulling the shelf over at the same time! The ladder is no longer next to the shelf, but it is still in the room. The boys don't use it so much any more. It is not high enough for them now, it seems (how they grow!) but Buttercup is on her rise to stardom as a Champion Edens Climber.

I delight in watching her reach these same milestones that her brothers did at about the same age (under two.) It scares the heck out of parents at the ... (pick one) ball field, grocery store, playground, etc. She climbs whenever she gets the chance. Though rare, she even manages to give me a bit of a jolt every now and then. But we taught her early on to climb stairs fairly safely so we are slightly more confident in her ability to follow her joy in this. Does this immunize her from the possibility that anything bad will happen? No, but perhaps it is better to help them remain safe through use of moderately safer equipment than to remove the equipment all together.

Our boys though have missed out on many of the old playground toys that we had as children because of an overzealous society wanting to protect from every aspect of possible harm. No longer do we see see-saws (or teeter-totters, depending on where you grew up!), merry-go-rounds or metal slides. My kids are probably happier without the metal slides, but a part of me wishes those other bits of fun were still around and we hadn't sterilized everything so much. What we have now are spaces that make it more difficult to run off their energy and their need to move; we've insisted that they sit in a room all day and try to think while being still (for my Smeagol, that seems almost impossible!). We've watched them struggle to comply, and then put them on medication for not being able to maintain focus under such circumstances.

So the answer to my original question - whether it is better to teach them to behave or to offer them objects that can withstand potential misuse and abuse - lies pretty squarely in the middle. Over time, teach them to stay still, to think, to contemplate. Also find ways to give them freedom to run, jump, climb and to take a few risks so they can reason out for themselves how to avoid danger. This balance is what they need to grow, and with a little guidance from us they will be the bright stars they are meant to be. If we learn to stop ourselves from rushing to "talk to someone" or fix things when they make poor choices, and to avoid bringing them out of the tree when they get a little higher than our stomachs like, they will learn lessons that will help them all the days of their lives. The tendency of children to get into slightly risky situations is both the gut-wrenching fear, and the joy, that comes from being parents as we watch them grow and thrive.