DUOFILIA

The Prairie is My Garden by Harvey Dunn

[I like this painting of a mother and her girls on the prairie, which of course reminds me of my current situation. The girls look happy and the mother is strong.]

I had planned to homeschool the girls before they were born. This was largely in part because I was not pleased with what I saw in school’s today. I don’t like some things they teach and some things they don’t teach. I don’t like the influences. I don’t like the curricula nor the physical education classes. Blah blah blah. Yes, I realize that their are exceptions to all these things I don’t like. There are schools with excellent curricula, there are awesome teachers, etc. For part of this school year the girls are in a semi-traditional school and I like it. They teach what I would teach and more. But this is an exception, rather than the rule.

Mostly, I wanted to homeschool my girls because of what homeschool offered. I can teach them exactly to their level. If they need challenged, I can challenge them. If they need more time to understand a concept, I can give them more time. If they are ahead a grade in one subject and behind a grade in another, I can do that. If they get really excited about subject, we can delve deeply into it. We can take off in the middle of the day and go SEE where the end of the Oregon Trail is and talk about concepts of exploration, supply and demand, and fractions while we’re there.

Academically, homeschool is where it’s at. Many well developed studies have proven it over and over. While certainly many kids do well in a traditional school, think how well a given child might do if you could design their schooling around the individual. Many of the ivy-league universities, including Harvard, not only accept homeschoolers but encourage their admission because of their reputation to be hard workers and autonomous thinkers.

Which brings me to the number one reason I choose to homeschool my girls. Character.

Tell me, how many schools out there truly teach a person to grow up to be an exemplary person? Some do perhaps, but not many. In a lot of cases it is not that a given school or teacher doesn’t want to teach a child to have a strong, noble character, but there is no time. How does one fit that in to the curriculum? What does one teach something seemingly intangible, anyway?

My girl’s current school, which is really more similar to a homeschool co-op than a traditional school, does this well. First there are strict rules and consequences, but balanced with that are positive reinforcements for good behavior. Children are not only taught to live in service to others but they actually go out each week and visit people in their homes or to skilled nursing facilities. Most importantly, kindness and true Christianity is actually demonstrated by the teachers, rather than just lectured upon.

What about practical matters? So you’ve graduated from high school and are somewhat prepared for college. That’s good. But do you also know what a household budget is and how to manage it? Can you do regular maintenance on your car? Do you know how to cook healthy food? Do you know how to grow a garden, fix a flat, do laundry…

What about practical social skills? This is the number one homeschool myth: how do they get socialized? I always imagine homeschoolers being taken to the store and being frightened of the bright lights, screaming like chimanzees, and hiding under the cashier’s counter when they see other people. Come on people, really? Studies, of course, disprove this too. Where did we get the idea that placing a child for years in a classroom filled only with people their exact age is a normalizing social lesson? When else in their lives will this happen again? Will they go to their work place as an adult and be assigned to the Division for 32 year olds?

Homeschoolers get to be with kids and adults of all ages and learn how to act appropriately with each age group. They get opportunities to teach children younger than themselves and to learn from and help children and adults older than themselves.  In their current schools they learn and practice public speaking. They get to have classes taught by different people in the community who get to share their skills with them.

My education goal for my girls, as their main teacher and their principal, is to guide them to learn how to learn all their lives, to be ready for whatever further education and career awaits them, to be ready to manage their own homes and lives, to be a blessing and service for others, to go where the Lord wants them to go, and to rise in the air to meet Him when our faithful service here on earth is done.

May we all be faithful.

There is the potential that this essay will offend someone.

That is not my goal, but admittedly it is a sensitive topic to many, which is one reason why it isn’t written about often.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is why you see pink now competes with the usual orange and black color schemes you see everywhere in stores this time of year. Pink is popular year-round, but in October retail shelves are positively pastel. This leads me to a series of questions.

First question: Where does all the money go when you purchase a Pink product? I admit that the actual color pink isn’t a particular favorite of mine, and therefore I have to really like a pink-colored item before I’ll buy it. Or I happen to need the item and the only one is pink. But I do not typically engage in retail-donation — that is, to buy something solely because a portion of the profits go a charitable foundation. I prefer to donate directly to the foundation.

Some Pink-product companies actually donate 100% of profits to some type of breast cancer-related entity. Some companies donate a portion of their profits. Some companies just produce more pink products this month. To raise any issues with this is like criticizing the proverbial boy-scout for helping the little old lady across the street. I have no problem with companies making charitable donations and am very happy that they do and many should do it more often and let their executives enjoy fewer golf holidays.

What I do have a problem with that Pink is used for marketing. Yes, I mean that a company purposefully sells a pink product, taking advantage of buyers who want to do good things. I realize this is a double-edged sword. Is it wrong to take advantage in this situation? After all the end result is good, right? People can buy what they want, it might as well be Pink, and it helps people?

All I can say is be aware. There are those who take advantage and those who are downright scammers. If you want to donate to any cause, it is best to donate directly. Research to find out if a foundation is established and credible. If you buy Pink, read labels to know what is happening to your potential donation. But remember, if you want to make a difference, you don’t have to buy something. Better yet, raise money yourself. Go on a 5K run or plant a tree. Your time might be the most valuable thing you can donate.

Second question: Where is all that money going to? Perhaps a huge vault in a massive pink warehouse. Staff in pink coveralls dutifully stacking donated dollars on pallets. On the other side of the warehouse is an enormous state-of-the-art lab where scientists work 24-hours every day, staring into microscopes, swirling beakers, and pondering.

No really, where is all that money going? I’ve tried to find out the estimated Pink-retail-profit and I get numbers from billions to trillions. Medical centers have built big and stunningly beautiful cancer centers. You can get four-star service if you get cancer, and I have no issues with that. I’ve had, and have, friends and relatives with cancer and I want them to be treated very well if they find themselves in that place.

But how much money does it take to find a cure? And what would happen to Pink power if a cure is found? I’m not answering these questions, I have no idea. But why don’t more people ask these questions?

Third question (and the one most likely to annoy people): Why are we focusing on breast cancer? I literally wince when I ask that question. Breast cancer is the disease du jour, just as HIV was in the past. Frankly, I have no problem with that either, based simply on the idea of focusing on a disease. Wouldn’t it be a beautiful thing if we could focus our national and international medical powers on a single disease, eradicate it, and move on to the next? But as it stands, is it really the best use of our money to try to cure one disease using retail therapy while all the other charitable foundations sit quietly in the shadows, hoping some day it will be their moment in the media’s sunshine?

By the way, smallpox was eradicated by focusing the powers of medicine, with a vengeance, on a single disease. Smallpox, is the only human infectious disease that has been eradicated, as certified by the World Health Organization. Read Atul Gawande’s book Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance for a superb description of this event. I guarantee it the story will say nothing along the lines of “and the war on smallpox was finally won, thanks to all the consumers who bought Purple cosmetic bags, Purple key chains, and Purple golf balls” [50's newsreel voice].

Last question: Why isn’t is National Breast Cancer Prevention Month? The American Medical Association and Centers for Disease Control agree that 80% of our modern, western, first-world diseases are caused by diet and lifestyle. Modern medicine is founded on treating disease, not prevention. If we could just get those pink-coverall-wearing-pallet-stackers to redirect 80% of the funds to prevention, now we’re on to something. Sell me a Pink pair of pants, pronto!

Love to all my friends and family out there who have had or have breast cancer, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, hepatitis, ankylosing spondylitis, aneurysms, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, HIV, colon cancer, diabetes, cerebral palsy, attention deficit disorder, hypertension, atherosclerosis, Lyme disease, and other the vast others I missed.

Someday all this suffering will end.

UPDATE: Thanks for all the text messages with photos of preposterous pink products!

Kansas Food Bank

Today was the day! I had my appointment at the Kansas Food Bank this afternoon and when I got there I a little early and the only volunteer there. Kevin came over and showed me how to fill the bags with food and how to pack the boxes, and then left. I worked industriously for about ten minutes before a group of volunteers came in. They consisted of caregivers and teenagers with mental disabilites. They were trained on the second “line” and I continued to work alone on the first. Then a single volunteer named Rhonda came in. This was her first day, too. A staff member came over to our table, pointed at me and said to her, “she’ll train you.”

So that’s how I became a trainer 15 minutes after being trained.

My job today was filling the bags for the Food-4-Kids project. “Food insecure” children are identified in local schools. These are kids who are chronically hungry and/or undernourished. Some families have to choose between food and other necessities, like electricity. These kids often miss breakfast and lunch at home. Going to school provides them with the only meal they have each day, but they go home on weekends and have very little. The Food-4-Kids program provides these kids with backpacks containing a bag of food for the weekend. These are the bags that we packed today. The food bank delivers 5,800 of these bags to schools every Friday.

Bank of America Volunteers Get in on the Act

I could have spent more than the hour and 1/2 I was there but my shoulder was getting weary and my fingers pre-blistering from closing the ziploc bags. But I will be back another day for another go-round. Maybe they’ll train me to operate the fork-lift. Yes!

Kansas Food Bank Warehouse

No Nightshade BBQ Sauce

I wish you could see the color of this sauce in real life. It is a brilliant raspberry red. This is the barbeque sauce I invented today. I can’t have nightshade vegetables – tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplant — although I love them and sometimes have a little. But then I pay for it with muscle and joint pain and my skin breaks out.

I had made an awesome sandwich for the girls the night before. Since I have only veggie juice for supper, I have their supper leftovers for lunch the next day. Works out great. But I had made them a BBQ Chik’n Sandwich on ciabatta bread. I really wanted to have one for lunch today, but I’ve cheated on the nightshades too much recently and have a rash already. So I made up this recipe, which I call NoNight BBQ sauce, and it is very yummy. It would work as ketchup, too, but it is more barbecuey.

So I toasted my ciabatta  roll, spread on Veganaise mayo, then a good dollop of my BBQ sauce, then some Gardein Chik’n Tenders, then red leaf lettuce, and added the “lid.” It was SO GOOD. Next time I’ll add just a bit of onion.

So what is it made out of, if not tomatoes?? I’ll give you a hint: this vegetable grows under the soil.

not quite the Italian flag

And for the girls’ supper — and my lunch mañana  – I made a pasta dish with a creamy sauce made with these bright veggies. Almost a mirepoix, but with spinach standing in for the celery.

Squirrelly Dirt Road

My wishes for rain came true. So far, rain only comes with thunderstorm, but I love the thunder and lightning. I drove to the Y today and the dirt road in this picture was just damp enough to make driving very squirrelly, which was awesome. I just wish I was in something other than a minivan, so I could weave all over the road properly. I planned to drift in a right turn, but a car was coming slowly my way, and since I might know the people, I slowed down and drove properly.

my supper

I’m already eat pretty healthy but I’m trying to eat even healthier to support my journey to wellness. So I get the girls to school and then eat my breakfast, then I have a late lunch, and then I have a light supper. The light supper is typical for me, but I’m making it lighter by just having fresh vegetable juices or a green drink. Some people can skip supper altogether, but I found that I can rarely do this. But this is a great time to slip in those juice I need to drink and I feel satisfied. In this picture is a carrot, celery and cucumber blend, which was quite yummy and refreshing.

devotions

So finally it is getting late, the girls do their evening devotional studies before bath and then bed time. Then the lights go out and then they come to my room several times to tell me that her sister poked her, or that she has a sudden new owie, or that she can’t find her water bottle, or that the lightning is keeping her awake, or…

And eventually I go to bed, too.

Goodnight everyone, and God bless.