Karstens Family ~ 2017

I ran over to Holly’s house to snap some pictures of their family while Drake was home for Christmas. Can you believe Holly and Casey have been married for 25 years? They look so young and lovely. Well, at least Holly does. [grin] She seems to get better with age. Totally unfair.

I’m having a hard time picking a favorite.

Casey is still working as a machinist and playing guitar. Holly is tutoring a Classical Conversations Challenge A class this year. Ilex has half a year left of dental hygiene school. Drake and Jess were married in March. She is currently living here while Drake finishes his time in Chicago. She’ll be joining him in San Diego in February, then they move to a Naval base in Washington in late spring. Ivy is in Holly’s Challenge A class this year.

Time flies.

Christmas 2017

My dear family. I adore them. We had the whole crew as always (including Drake and his wife, Jess) for Christmas. Olive and Little Ben are missing in the above picture, but they stopped by later in the afternoon.

We had breakfast and stockings at home (as usual) before heading to my parents’ house just down the road. We opened gifts there (we always take turns opening one at a time), and Mom had stockings for all of us.

Mom also knitted scarves for all the ladies. (Now Olive had arrived, but Sweden was napping.)

Then dinner. Shannon outdid herself on the tablescape. It was whimsical and so very lovely.

Forest animals. Felt teepees, wigwams, and toadstools. Ferns and branches. Little camp trailers and vintage cars carrying Christmas trees on their roofs. Beeswax candles.

So cheery. (The ceiling was covered in white lights and paper snowflakes.)

Bright laughter, good company, delicious food.

And then our traditional after-dinner walk. It had been a beautiful day of sunshine, and we hit the chill of sunset.

The three little girls above.

The complete Karstens family below. So nice to have Drake home from Chicago. He moves to San Diego (and Jess will join him there) in February for more schooling before landing at the Naval base in Washington in the late spring. We’re so glad they will be less than a day’s drive away.

Sweden, the doll of the family.

Levi Drama

Color or black and white?

Rilla and Sweden

Aren’t they getting big?

And one more of Sweden from our after Thanksgiving dinner walk:

Green Friday Fishing

After a few hours of sunshine at E.E. Wilson Wildlife Area, we wandered over to Timber Linn park where my husband was fishing. [I do not know what has possessed him, but he is fishing-obsessed at the moment.] It was such a gorgeous day, and this particular spot is exceedingly convenient. The pond has recently been stocked with huge rainbow trout, and Russ has been catching consistently this past week.

Shannon took advantage of the fact that Russ had all the equipment out, and she brought Rilla and Sweden to catch their first fish. It isn’t a deep pond. Two lifeguards were present. No mud. Extra adults to watch children. The girls were already dirty. Sweden took a nap in the car. Sunshine. Parking right at the pond (which is only a few miles from our house). A guy willing to gut the fish. Easy peasy.

They may be a little spoiled because we ended up with eleven gorgeous trout. As Russ said, “Girls, this isn’t called fishing. It’s called catching.”

The Greatness of Small Things ~ Green Friday

Hours and hours of sunshine for our traditional Green Friday!

Holly, Ilex, and Ivy
Shannon, Rilla, and Sweden
Heidi, Levi, Luke, Leif, and Lola

I was thrilled that Ilex was able to take a break from her studies and join us.

“A man can do worse than be poor. He can miss altogether the sight of the greatness of small things.” [Supper of the Lamb]

"Life is so much more than occasions, and its grand ordinariness must never go unsavored.”

“Only miracle is plain; it is the ordinary that groans with the unutterable weight of glory.”

“Come then; leap upon these mountains, skip upon these hills and heights of earth. The road to Heaven does not run from the world but through it.”

 

“[The world] is a gorgeous old place, full of clownish graces and beautiful drolleries, and it has enough textures, tastes, and smells to keep us intrigued for more time than we have.”

“Man’s real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are. That is, after all, what God does, and man was not made in God’s image for nothing.”

“For leisure is a receptive attitude of mind, a contemplative attitude, and it is not only the occasion but also the capacity for steeping oneself in the whole of creation.” [Leisure: The Basis of Culture]

Rejoice, Pray, Give Thanks

“You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this:
Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

~Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

Pay Attention

ISFJ + R x 4 = Burnout

Have you taken the Homeschool Personality Quiz at Simply Convivial?

I’ve been fond of the Myers-Briggs personality types since my oldest was very young and it was obvious that he was processing the world in completely different ways from how I processed the world. With the discovery of MB, I also discovered that my husband is my polar opposite. Okay, that wasn’t exactly a new discovery, but it helped me to understand that he wasn’t picking the opposite answer or approach every single time just to make my life difficult. [wry grin] That’s just how he sees and processes ideas, tasks, and experiences (and I’m sure he constantly questions my processing as well).

I am an ISFJ. I don’t think I have ever scored differently on a MB quiz. How does this personality inform my homeschool style? According to the quiz at Simply Convivial, ISFJs are very supportive and love being useful, but because they also dislike conflict, homeschooling becomes difficult when there is any push-back or frustration by the children.

I could have told you that.

Now, as fond as I am of the MB personality typing, and as little as I like other personality typing (DiSC, Enneagram, whatever), I recently re-took Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies quiz. I didn’t really need to take the quiz to know my type, but I’m a rule- and process-follower.

Obliger. I meet outer expectations and resist (or fail) inner expectations.

I got to wondering what my kids would score. I had a pretty good guess for three of my children and a hunch for the fourth.

The three boys took the online test. All three scored the same.

Rebel. They resist both outer and inner expectations.

If my daughter could take the test? Also Rebel.

This Obliger is attempting to parent and homeschool FOUR Rebels (three of whom are boys in puberty or adolescence), and feeling like a failure. [Three of my children are Rebels from birth—though each is different in his/her own way. One of my children is likely an Obliger who is going through a Rebel phase. Interestingly, my Rebel children’s rooms/spaces are complete chaos and my Obliger/Rebel craves neat and attractive spaces.]

If you haven’t parented (or homeschooled) a Rebel, this is what it feels like: every time you take a step, someone puts something in your way and you trip over it.

Me: Fish can’t walk.
Rebel: Some can.

Me: Don’t touch this.
Rebel: [touches this]

Me: Do not get out of bed for any reason again tonight.
Rebel: Unless the house is on fire or someone is bleeding or _________ or___________.

Me: This is the expectation and this is the consequence.
Rebel: [long list of exceptions and loopholes and/or volatile response to the unfairness of it all (or, alternately) “doesn’t hear a thing”]

Me: You will now have to lose ______ because you did/didn’t do __________.
Rebel: Didn’t want it anyway. (or, alternately) Now I have no reason to do anything, so I will not meet any more expectations or follow any more rules. (or, alternately) Here are all the reasons I think you are wrong, including that I didn’t hear you state the expectation and consequence and you can’t prove that I did, your expectations weren’t clear, your expectations were unreasonable, this is the loophole you didn’t account for, I did *enough* to meet the expectations and your evaluation of my work is arbitrary, someone else stated different expectations, you are a terrible mom for taking this away from me.

Me: You can earn _______ privilege by meeting ________ responsibility.
Rebel: Don’t want it bad enough. (or, alternately) I’ve never before been able to earn that privilege, so I don’t know how great it could be, so no great loss.

Me: I refuse to argue and I’m walking away.
Rebel: Awesome. Now I can keep doing whatever it is I wanted to be doing. (or, alternately) You don’t love me and you don’t value my thoughts and ideas. You just want to control me.

Me: It’s time to ______.
Rebel: Don’t micromanage me.

Me: Why didn’t you do this?
Rebel: You didn’t tell me to. (or, alternately) You didn’t help me with it/do it for me.

Tutor: Class, stand up and recite with me.
Rebel: [flops all over on the floor] My legs are tired.

Tutor: Sit in a circle, class.
Rebel: [stands up and wiggles]

Me: Please don’t talk to every stranger you meet.
Rebel: [talks to every stranger he/she meets]

Tutor: Why don’t we go around in a circle and introduce ourselves.
Rebel: [refuses to speak because she’s “shy”]

How you deal with this depends on your personality type and also whose parenting advice you listen to—which feels mostly like a pendulum swing. Either you state expectations and consequences without any discussion, walk away, and let the consequences speak for themselves without the emotional rollercoaster and without engaging in a power struggle OR you treat your children like human beings and value their thoughts and ideas, giving them input into their own lives so they can learn to process ideas and self-regulate.

Neither of these work for me. Great on paper. Messier in real life.

A few months ago, a lovely homeschool guru posted on her Facebook page: “It’s a GOOD thing to have kids who push back and question everything.”

Well, no. It’s exhausting. Simple things that should take 5 minutes become a 60 minute “discussion” and it ends in either the child being allowed to have their way or a battle because the child doesn’t get their way at the end of it. Natural consequences are often, even usually, felt by someone other than the child. And when you’re doing this x4 all day, every day, there just isn’t time left for anything else—like making dinner or sleeping.

The natural consequences are that the house is trashed, lessons are not being completed, everyone is irritable, no one enjoys each other’s company, and nothing fun is on the calendar.

The natural consequences are that mom is hiding in the bedroom.

Education for Life

This morning I re-read an old article at First Things, A Curriculum of Life. The author asserts that a child’s curriculum should enlarge his current life, not be a self-serving means to an end (diploma, employment). He proposes structuring a curriculum using the “Three L’s”: Logic, Literature, and Love.

"But we must never allow a curriculum for school to replace a curriculum of life; schooling mustn’t take over the education of living. When it does it becomes deeply mis-educative and disenchanting. It robs our children of the present gift of life they have been given by God.

"If—heaven forbid—they die young, I hope they will have lived beautiful lives even in their youth, perhaps even more so than those who survive them."

This reminded me of beautiful discussion this month with my Scholé Sisters, led my my brilliant friend Mindy Pickens. We gathered, about twenty of us, to talk about why we take time to read, take time to contemplate, take time to gather and discuss, when we are busy homeschooling moms with endless to-do lists.

What is the use of spending a year on Hamlet or a year on Flannery O’Connor or a year on Tolkien or a year on Pride and Prejudice (our upcoming year)? What do we have to show for our time? Why should this pursuit take up space in our lives that could be used for something more productive or practical?

Let’s contemplate those questions.

In our modern American culture, we tend to divide pursuits or activities into two categories: productive/useful and pleasurable/wasteful. These two categories often carry a moral designation as well: productive, good; pleasurable, bad.

In some ancient cultures, however, different categories of thinking were used: self-focused/utilitarian and truth-focused/non-utilitarian (pursuits that were worthy in and of themselves and not as the means to an end). These weren't moral designations. Both of them were necessary for life.

The interesting thing about self-focused and truth-focused categories is that they are more fluid than our productive and wasteful categories and it often depends on a person's mindset while doing them. We talked about how monks turned the most routine labor into a means of worship.

We can clean our homes so that we can check that task off our list or we can clean our homes in service of the people we love who live there or visit there.

We can stand and eat a protein bar so that our bodies will function for all of our tasks that day, or we can use our meal time as a time to reflect or practice gratefulness. We can make an artful meal or a beautiful table. We can eat in community with others. We can use a meal to bless our families. There is nothing wrong with fueling our bodies quickly with a protein bar, but there are other ways to make meals and fuel our bodies that are less utilitarian.

One of my friends talked about how shifting her mindset to thinking of all the mundane tasks of motherhood (breaking up fights, cleaning up vomit, carpooling to activities) as truth-seeking and service was instrumental in saving her sanity as a mom to many little children. Those aren't big time-drains that take away from our ability to be productive. They have value beyond what they lead to or produce.

The word "school" itself comes from the word "scholé" which means leisure. In the past, leisure was synonymous with activities that were truth-focused and non-utilitarian. Leisure wasn't the absence of work. It wasn't vacation. It wasn't consumerism. It wasn't non-activity such as sitting in front of the television. It was work that was worthy for its own sake, not as a means to an end (a diploma, a good job, a position in society).

When we say we are pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty in education, we mean that we are learning because truth, goodness, and beauty are worthy pursuits in their own right. Cultivating virtue (self-discipline, commitment, perseverance, compassion, cooperation, patience...) is also a goal of education and an end in itself.

I like the three categories in the article: Logic, Literature, and Love. I can fit all of the Classical Conversations Challenge content into those three categories. I can fit all of it into truth-seeking and true leisure—living a beautiful life now and not as the means to an end.

The difficulty lies in thinking of the curriculum in that way, pursuing it in that way, and especially helping our 8th and 10th grade boys to see it that way, rather than as an obligation, a drudge, a check-list, and a stepping-stone to a diploma, which is a stepping-stone to a good job, which is a stepping-stone to vacations and possessions and savings, which is a stepping-stone to retirement.

I also struggle with habit-forming and teaching my boys and myself to love what we ought and not just what is pleasurable. Virtue formation is hard, and often requires doing something repeatedly until we grow to love it.

So I'm saying all this not to be preachy, but to remind myself (because I forget every minute of every day) what a beautiful education can be. It doesn't have to be CC—absolutely not—and it can (and should) be a tailored version of CC, if that’s the path you’re on, but I believe Challenge is full of logic, literature, and love (and leisure!) that can enlarge our students’ present lives. It happens to be a good fit for us at this time.

Figuring out what a beautiful life looks like for ourselves and our children and our families is always going to require constant prayer and consideration. Implementing it in reality is going to be even more difficult (especially with teen boys). There is no formula. It’s complex and messy and hard and beautiful. It also requires a magnitude of faith.

.

How can we operate under a truth-seeking mindset rather than a self-focused mindset?

How can we pursue leisure and virtue and truth, goodness, and beauty rather than a utilitarian outcome?

Do our pursuits enlarge our humanity or diminish it?

What skills are we learning? My friend Mindy thinks in skills rather than subjects. Attending, listening, speaking, reading, writing, remembering, and reasoning.

How can we serve others in this pursuit?

Where is the truth, goodness, beauty, and order in what we are viewing and contemplating?

What virtues are we striving toward? Self-discipline, patience, compassion, wonder?

How can we turn this pursuit into truth-seeking or leisure?

How can we practice re-creating in this endeavor rather than consuming?

How can we delight, attend, worship, contemplate, or build relationships in this moment?

.

Will it help to revisit the “a garden, a museum, a table, a church—which is to say a monastery” metaphor? I think so.

As my friend Sara Masarik said, “A monastery strives to serve with feet on earth and hearts and heads in heaven. And that, I think, is what our homes [our educations, our lives] can be as well.”

Books for Boys ~ Part 1

Hello! to those of you joining me from the Storyformed Podcast. Welcome to Mt. Hope Chronicles!

To my regular readers, check out the Storyformed Podcast. Today I’m talking with Holly and Jaime about Favorite Books for Boys.

For newcomers, book recommendations are sprinkled throughout the blog, but you can find most of them at the following links:

Picture Book Picnic
The Reading Child
and Literary Buffet

I’ve been wanting to share more comprehensive lists, and this seems like a good time to start. Favorites lists are always difficult, though. There are so many books to choose from, and I know I’m leaving many great ones off the list.

Part 2, coming soon, will include non-fiction books and book selections for teen boys.

For now, we’ll start with these family favorites!

Animals

The Great Mouse Detective by Eve Titus [This is a great easy chapter book series for beginning readers.]

Babe: The Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith [Dick King-Smith wrote a bunch of wonderful easy chapter books for beginning readers, but Babe is my personal favorite.]

Dominic by William Steig [Many readers are familiar with Steig’s picture books (Amos and Boris is a personal favorite), but few people have read his three short chapter books. Dominic is one of my most favorite children’s books, but The Real Thief and Abel’s Island are wonderful as well. Steig’s vocabulary is incredible.]

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden [This is a delightful story and a favorite from my childhood.]

Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin by Marguerite Henry [This simple chapter book is a historical narrative about the artist Benjamin West’s childhood.]

Freddy the Pig by Walter Brooks [This series about a detective pig is incredibly witty and humorous.]

Humor

Little Pear by Eleanor Frances Lattimore [Follow along with Little Pear’s adventures and capers in this easy chapter book for beginning readers.]

Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson [This series is hilarious. The audio books read by the author are worthy listening.]

Half Magic (and others) by Edward Eager [Delightful and witty.]

Homer Price (and Centerburg Tales) by Robert McCloskey [Homer Price is always my first suggestion when someone asks me for book recommendations for boys! Homer is resourceful and always finds himself in the middle of adventures.]

Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson [More vintage schemes and adventures!]

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat [Laugh-out-loud adventures of a boy and his pet menagerie.]

The Mad Scientists’ Club by Bertrand Brinley [More vintage capers.]

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster [This hilarious book is full of word play humor and a love of words and numbers.]

The Knights’ Tales by Gerald Morris [The four books in this series are perfect for knight-loving boys. Humor and chivalry make a great combination.]

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey [Hilarious stories of the Gilbreth family, but a tear-jerker warning for the ending!]

Realistic and Survival

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare [A thirteen-year-old boy is left to tend his family’s cabin in the wilderness.]

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George [A boy leaves the city and survives alone in the wilderness with a falcon and weasel for company.]

Hatchet (and others) by Gary Paulsen [A thirteen-year-old boy finds himself alone in a wilderness after a plane crash.]

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls [A young boy and his two dogs become a hunting team. Tear-jerker warning!]

Little Britches and series by Ralph Moody [This autobiographical series is a family favorite.]

The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour [Perfect for slightly older readers, this novel is full of adventure and survival—and a love of books.]

I Am David by Anne Holm [A twelve-year-old boy escapes from a labor camp and makes his way alone across Europe. This is one of my childhood favorites.]

The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert DeJong [A young Chinese boy is separated from his family during the Japanese invasion. He must begin a dangerous journey in order to be reunited.]

Fantasy

The Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan [This fantasy series is a top favorite for all three of my boys.]

The Squire’s Tales series by Gerald Morris [This series is at the top of my own favorites list, and my boys have loved them as well. Hilarious, witty, simple, stirring, and profound. Strong male and female characters. Full of virtue, chivalry, and what it means to be human (along with foils to show the opposite). Parental warning: these are retellings of Arthurian legends, so they contain romantic situations both positive and negative, including several affairs. The author treats the negative relationships appropriately, never explicit and always showing the steep consequences for actions.]

The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson [Another family favorite.]

The Wilderking Trilogy by Jonathan Rogers [The story of King David loosely re-imagined in the swamps of “Corenwald.”]

The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander [A modern classic.]

Outlaws of Time (and others) by N.D. Wilson [I personally love the Western fantasy adventure of Outlaws of Time, but Wilson’s other books are worthy reading as well.]

Watership Down by Richard Adams [Watership Down may be a book about rabbits, but it probably belongs in the realistic survival genre. This is an excellent novel for slightly older readers as it explores the nature of leadership and various societal structures. Adams is a master at world-building. A classic!]

Siblings

The Moffats (series) by Eleanor Estes [Meet Sylvie, Joey, Janey, and Rufus in this classic family adventure.]

The Saturdays (Melendy Quartet) by Elizabeth Enright [Mona, Rush, Randy, and Oliver go for independent adventures in New York City circa 1940s.]

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome [This 1930 gem tells the story of the Walker siblings and their parent-less sailing trip to an uninhabited island.]

“Girl Books” Loved by (My) Boys

Jenny and the Cat Club (series) by Esther Averill [Jenny the darling black cat may be the main character, but her cat club friends are just as personable.]

The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton [Quirky and delightful in every way.]

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin [Chinese folklore-inspired fantasy.]

Summer Bucket List ~ Portland, Oregon

It’s still technically summer, right?

We took a family drive up to Portland. Seeing everything interesting in Portland takes much more than a day, but we hit a few memorable locations.

After a morning of fighting and yelling and unpleasantness (yes, really), the above moment was the first bright spot. The kids yelled, “The Librarians!” when they realized that this is the exact spot that The Librarians was filmed. The stone base on the lower right is the entrance to their “Annex.”

In the distance you can see part of Forest Park (more about that in a minute).

St. Johns Bridge is a steel suspension bridge spanning the Willamette River. It was built between 1929 and 1931.

After we crossed the bridge twice, we walked a small portion of a trail in Portland’s famous Forest Park. The 5,100 acres of this urban park (one of the largest in the nation) contain 70 miles of trails. We may have walked one mile. This is Leif Erikson Drive. [The boys have enjoyed the Wildwood series which takes place in Forest Park. One of these days, we’ll walk the 30 mile Wildwood Trail.]

After Forest Park, we spent a short hour at Powell’s Books, reportedly the largest new and used book store in the world.

After Powell’s, Russ dropped me off for a visit with Mandi Ehman who was in town for a conference. I haven’t seen her in person since our trip to visit Susan Wise Bauer over 5 years ago! [Photo from Mandi’s phone.] I met two new friends as well!

Russ went fishing with the kids back near the St. Johns Bridge while I was socializing, then returned to pick me up.

The wildfire smoke was awful in Portland. It bothered me more on this trip than it had the whole month before. I’ve never been so glad to see a week of rain in the forecast.

We hit Fuddruckers for dinner on the way home, and I think that was (predictably) the highlight of the day for the kids.