Snapshots of Fall

Sean loves every little creature, and that includes snails. We have an abundance of these, and he frequently brings them inside to watch them slime along on various surfaces--yep, even his face. I've grown to love all things boy, and now embrace slime, and the beauty of snakes and frogs and even spiders. As long as he loves to learn about them, I get just as excited as he does.

For a while there, Sean was starting to get his days and nights mixed up. So it was to the point of ridiculous, and I decided I was going to wear him out and get him to bed early one day last week. We went to the park and he ran and played for well over an hour. Blew homeschool day, but hey, it got him back on track. This pic is as the sun is setting. It was getting pretty chilly, and he was getting tired.

As if life wasn't full enough, I decided it would be a good idea to get a kitten. We have a dog, and we love her. But I thought Sean would enjoy an inside pet. I've had cats before, but one at a time. I thought maybe it would be better to have two and they could play and have a companion and not cry all night long. We got these two on Monday night. They race through the house all night, wreaking havoc on anything that isn't too heavy to knock over. Sometimes I think I should have my head examined.

But they are very cute, and I think it will be good for Sean to learn how to take care of them.

Sean's Jack-o-Lantern

We went to the poor man's pumpkin patch yesterday. The big cardboard bins at Fred Meyer.
Oh, I've made that Be a Good Mom syndrome trip to the cute pumpkin patch and paid an outrageous price. One year I think I spent close to $40-some on a couple of pumpkins and a carving tool set which promptly bent and broke after about a minute of cutting into the pumpkin.
Right.
Sean carefully chose a pumpkin from the three bins, we paid our $3 and brought our new friend home. When we were ready, he drew the design he wanted. I transfered it to the pumpkin and we got to work.
I believe I have carved a pumpkin with my kids for about 18 or so years. Some years we had more than one because the elongated shape lent itself to ghostly faces, and the squat ones more of the traditional creepy snaggle toothed types.
It is pouring rain as I write this. Predicted weather for Halloween? You got it, pouring rain. So I think we will choose an inside gig.
We usually have a huge decoration in the yard that I got on super sale at Big Lots a few years ago. We call it "The Great Pumpkin," and it rises in our front yard. It's one of those popular ones you plug in that fills with air. Not sure he'll make it to our yard this year with all the rain.
But this little guy will be on our porch and we'll attempt to keep him glowing.

Do you see what your children are seeing?

In the past I have been a big fan of children's movies. In more recent years I've been disappointed by the quality on several levels. But there is one thing I didn't see and it took Sean to show me that what some people have been saying for years is really true.

He enjoys movies. He loves Peter Pan, and has for a while now. We recently found the old movie, "Hook," at a thrift store and he watched it for a few days. It's the story of Peter Pan all grown up, who has to go back to Neverland and fight Captain Hook again to save his children. But really it's about a dad who is way too focused on work and worldly things instead of being present for his kids. It's cute.
For years people have been saying that Disney movies are produced in a racist way. The good guys are always white. Bad guys are black, and sometimes the black animated characters (such as the crows in Dumbo) are portrayed with a Southern accent and obvious black dialect.
I could see it, but also always said people can take anything and pick it apart and make it into something to support their agenda.
Sean is a brown child, with brown eyes and very dark brown- almost black hair.
Recently he started saying things like, "I wish I had white skin." We talk about that and how God made him brown, and God believes he is wonderful just the way he is, and I do too. I love his brown skin and think it is beautiful.
Another night as I put him to bed he said, "I wish I had blue eyes." I asked why, and he said because in the movies, the one the movie is about always has blue eyes and they're the good guys."
He has noticed it in other films too, and cartoons.
Now my job is to subtly replace those with more healthy options, if I can FIND ANY! I could do away with movies and cartoons all together, but I don't think that is realistic.

It's a Wild West out there

Danna, Rodika, Irene and myself at Seattle University 

for the Northwest Journalism Conference.

The campus was very nice, and I love the fall colors.

I attended a Journalism conference yesterday in Seattle and it was AWESOME. All three of the sessions I attended were incredible, filled with some of the best minds and best journalists around. A bunch of the former P-I guys have launched a non-profit online news site, and there are several others that have cropped up as well.

You should check these out: westseattleblog.com

That one is run by a woman who used to be a newsroom manager at a TV station years ago. She and her husband manage this site 24-7 and do it in shifts. It is for profit and they're bringing in 6 figures a year.

pubicola.net is run by a guy who was an editor of a city paper called The Stranger. publicola started with what it did best, politics in Olympia, and then expanded to include other topics. The amount of coverage for Olympia dropped from 30 reporters to 7 since the cutbacks in newspapers.

crosscut.com  also does some politics, but more analysis type stuff. They just recently went to non-profit.

Another bunch of P-I people launched invw.org, an investigative news site.

Sounded like all of these guys link to each other's sites too.  Journalism is becoming much more cooperative, and I've seen that out in my area as well. A quasi-competitor of mine and I frequently share story ideas, photos, etc.

There was a guy at the event named Mark Briggs who used to be the online tech guy for the Tacoma News Tribune. He has written a book that is being used in college classrooms now called Journalism 2.0. He has another one coming out soon and he also has some great info about what to do and not to do online.

The publisher/owner of the Seattle Times provided a question answer during lunch, and actually said the newspaper business model is solid, and there are other factors in the mess that people don't realize and understand. Big business conglomerates that own newspapers have tacked on debts that are pulling the newspapers under. Seattle Times is a family owned paper, one of the last in the country. 

He said he doesn't believe the online news has a good business model. But the west seattle blog lady seems to be doing something right.

Several people said Seattle is a great case study for what is happening in journalism right now.

What I saw was optimism and excitement about the endless possibilities. The theme of the day was try it and fail quickly. If you fail, do something different.

Another theme: All students graduating need to know the fundamentals of journalism, ethics, etc. but also all of the online tech tools, how to operate a video camera, edit that content, and know some html. crosscut.com and publicola.com editors both said they incorporate video into their news site.

As the former editor of the Spokane Spokesman Review said, "We're back to the Wild West days," where anyone who had a passion for getting the information out to the people could do it and they weren't considered professionals nor did they need to be.

Questions about credibility, how to identify a credible source online, and whether there should be some way to tag credible sources was discussed in one session. A big caution to where the information used in stories comes from was given. One example: information that was taken from Wikipedia and used as fact in a story. It was wrong. Also discussion about how information can travel so fast, and be wrong.

I'll end with this quote that was mentioned:

"The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue."

Edward R. Murrow

And I got that quote from a source called thinkexist.com, which also provides an icon under that quote that says, "suggest a revision." A shame Ed isn't here to correct us if we're wrong on that one.

Godly Play

I am so excited I can barely contain myself. Just a couple of weeks ago I was thinking about our church Sunday school and wishing there was a different way of teaching it. The reason I started thinking was because I received a call asking if I would teach again.  I said no to teaching this year because this is my first year of homeschool teaching and thought I would be overwhelmed. I've been a Sunday school teacher, and followed a curriculum and did what the book said, and it was fine. But after experiencing the Montessori way of learning academics, I wished there could be a Montessori way of learning about Christ and the Bible.
Well, I had no idea!
There is such a thing, and our church is starting Godly Play Sunday School this weekend!!! (There will also be traditional grades Sunday school.)
I am so excited for Sean.
And when I mentioned it to my friend Shane, she said her little boy Jacob-Joshua had been in a Godly Play Sunday school in Germany and she was looking for one here. She tried one in another city that didn't quite get it right, she said. So I think they are going to visit our church soon.
I feel like it is a validation for me in a way, on my decision to Montessori homeschool. Sean's academic and faith education will be based on the same philosophy of learning.
If you want more information about Godly Play check out this site.
Here is a description from our Sunday school letter:
The Godly Play classroom is designed so that children can use and explore everything in it. It is a safe, engaging and loving environment where what children say and do is valued and respected. The walls of the classroom are lined with shelves, each containing baskets of stories made out of beautiful, natural materials. Children are thus surrounded by the biblical story in the classroom.
And this:
During the "work" time children are invited to use the enrichment materials of the classroom to further explore the story. These include books, maps, and art materials, as well as the stories themselves. During this time, besides having fun, the children are linking up the religious language of the story with their own inner understanding, which helps them understand the story and makes it come alive. This makes sense, because in so doing they are entering into relationship with God--opening themselves to grace.

Rain and home work

Here comes the rain again...

Rain puddled onto the bottom of a metal bucket I plan to use as a planter.

We have had a little dose of fall with a cool 59 degrees and hard rain last night and today. Makes me want to curl up with a bowl of soup and watch some cool old movie. But I can't. I've got fours stories to write. Maybe later on the soup and movie.

I enjoy working from home. It is something I have wanted to do for years, and prayed that someday I would be able to do it. I have freedom to work in my pajamas if I want to, and I can go to my refrigerator whenever I want. I control the temperature here. I can't tell you how many times I just wanted to leave work because the office was soooooo cold. 

Karen and I have had conversations about this. We've both admitted to spending some time with our hands under the hot water faucet in the bathroom just to get warm. I shocked co-workers at one office because I actively sought out the maintenance guy to remedy the problem. I was shivering, and they were also cold but looked at me like I was crazy when I placed the call. I believe I left early that day because nothing was done about the temperature.

There are other positive things about working from home. If my child is sick I don't have to get permission from anyone to take off from work, and if I need to write a story at midnight, I can do that. It makes so much more sense to me to work this way. I believe I am more productive working from home. 

Working from home has made homeschooling Sean possible, and for that I am so thankful.

The only drawback, and I wouldn't even go so far as to say negative, is that I never feel like I'm "off from work." Work is always right here. I don't get a lot of down time from it, and it is always on my mind. 

But I try to think of it as a hobby that I get paid to do. I enjoy my work, and try to grab moments here and there to think of something else. Like when we go to the beach, or I take Sean to a museum.

Life is Good. I'm enjoying the ride.

Change is in the air

Sunday was beautiful, so we spent a little time at the beach.

Sean found this cool log lodged on some rocks, and he loved balancing and walking across it. I tried not to think of the jagged rocks below and just let him be a boy.

There is a different glow when the sun rays hit the water, and the chill in the air as the wind picks up is telling me to enjoy every summer moment possible before autumn arrives. We have had a very warm and pleasant summer, so I should not be as disappointed when the rain comes. There have been summers here that we didn't put on a pair of shorts the whole season, and this year we've worn them every day.

Soon the grass will be green again, and I'll be racing to get it cut before the rains come. We'll be chopping carrots for our carrot stew, firing up the pot for our beans and cornbread, and baking breads.

But we still have a little bit of summer left, and we will spend as much of it as possible at the beach.