Eating Local

This fall, my family joined a "CSK," a Community Supported Kitchen. Once a week, we pick up a box with all the ingredients and recipes to make five dinners. All the food is local, fresh, and organic. We can order other items and meals through them as well, including extra bread, meat, and dairy.

Each week, we get one meat meal (some past examples include beef strogonoff, meat loaf, and sausages), one fish meal (some examples include fish sticks, smoked salmon chowder, and shrimp pumpkin curry), and three vegetarian meals (some from the last week or two include Moroccan stew (with garbanzo beans and squash), squash soup with cheddar apple sandwiches, and kale Gouda strata). Also, one of them is also a pasta dish. Often it is the meat or fish dish, but not always.

I am so glad that we did this. We now eat all fresh produce, so that means a lot of kale and chard, potatoes, and squash. At first, I was not sure about the kale and other veggies like that, but I have found that most things are good if they are cooked the right way. For example, kale is actually pretty good if it is sauteed in butter. :)

The best part of this is that I now eat all sorts of things that I didn't before. A lot of this is dependent  on what is available locally, so we don't get much chicken, because it is not easy to get here organically, but we get a lot of beef. I eat a lot of kale, Gouda cheese, beef, cabbage, Shitake mushrooms, parsnips and salmon, all of which are in season and here organically. 

I am so glad that we did this. :) I wish there were more options like this in other areas, and I hope this model becomes more popular. 

Homeschool Fridays: Q&A Post!

This is an old Q&A post that was published in October 2012 back over on my old blog, Living Homeschooled.


I asked around on Google+ and in some past posts for questions about being a teenage homeschooler, and here's what I got. I was surprise by the turn out! If I keep getting questions at this rate, I might have to make these a regular thing!

Lewis Miranda asked-

Here. Is it hard on you, being outside the influence of school groups?

The school as a place that brings people of similar ages to a single location, where they both learn and interact. in that environment, there is good and bad. there may also be some things you would be curious about or (want) / (would like) to explore/experience.

So, what is your think on this one? What is your feel? your handling? why?

Wow, interesting question!  I think this one is a lot like many socialization questions that every homeschooler has heard many times. As far as that aspect of it goes, no, it is not hard on me. Our homeschool group has many (probably close to 50) families, with kids of all ages (17-15 months). There are lots of activities that are all ages that I participate in, and also ones for just the high school group. So as far as that goes, no, it is not really hard on me.

As far as things that I might want to experience, I have not had much trouble with that either. With such a large group, we have done a lot of classes (one mom used to make stained glass as a career and now teaches it to the older kids who are interested, another used to be a high school art teacher, and teaches that). I can also take individual classes or sports at the local high school if I want to. The only things that some of us older girls wish we had were dances and other similar formal activities. We could go to the ones at the school, but we don't know any of the people there.

Emily L. wanted to know-

 Have you ever gone to public school? What are some of the major pros/cons between the two types of schooling?

 I went to kindergarten and first grade at the local elementary school. I actually liked it, though I was really advanced in reading and writing, and so was bored a lot of the time. As far as pros/cons go, I think they are different for every family. For me, the main pro of homeschooling is that I can go at my own pace. That means that I was able to do a 8th grade level English program in 5th grade, because I was ready for it. I also spent two years doing Algebra 1 because I was not ready to move on yet. The main con for me is that it can be a bit too easy to get pretty far behind in something by just procrastinating, even if it is not really a difficult subject.

Another pro of homeschooling is that the people are a lot nicer. :) I do things with school kids sometime, and they are a lot less accepting of people they don't know. With homeschooling, at least in our group, there is a lot less pressure to 'fit in.'

These are just my personal pros and cons. They vary from family to family.

 Robin, age 11 asks

What do you do if you get overwhelmed?

The best answer  I have to that question is take a break. :) I am assuming you are meaning when I am doing my school work.

That certainly happens to me.  Usually with things like Latin, or Algebra. If I am getting frustrated, or overwhelmed with a particular subject, I will either take a 20 minute break, and read a book, or eat a snack, or sometimes do some writing. Then I come back to it. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed because I am not sure how to to do the assignment. In those cases, I put it aside until I have a chance to talk to my mom about it.


Ginger, age 8 asks

How tricky is your schooling?

Well, that varies. :) Personally, my strongest subjects are English, History, and Logic, and I think those are all pretty easy. Biology and Latin are the ones I struggle with the most. I am in my 7th year of Latin, and I found it really does not get much easier. :)

I spend about 5-6 hours a day doing my school. Those 'trickier' subjects easily take up half of that time.


Nepeta asked-

 I would like to know more about the homeschool group and how that works.

Eight years ago, when we started homeschooling, my dad was reading a local homeschool Yahoo group, and saw a few families mention that they met every week at a park. At that time, we did not know any other homeschoolers, so my dad emailed the woman in charge of them, and told her we would be coming that week. Including us, there were maybe 6 families at that time.

For about three years, that was all our homeschool group was. It grew considerably, to about 10-15 families.  Then, one of the families expressed an interest in doing a soccer class. Enough families were also interested that we rented a local indoor soccer field and hired a college student to teach us soccer one morning a week. Four years later, Friday Soccer is now a much bigger deal, with three age groups, each including about 20 kids.

About that time, one mom, who used to be a high school art teacher, decided to offer a art class to me, my sister, and the kids of a few other families. She has done them regularly ever sense. Another mom sets up a few field trips to local businesses each month. For example, last week, we toured a local apple orchard.

Basically, our group is made up of 15-20 "core families" who set up most of these activities, most of whom have been around a long time. There are other families who come to some of the activities, but are not as active in the group. 

Thanks for all of your great questions! If you have more, ask them in the comments, and when I get enough, I will do another Q&A post!

Banned Books: Part Two

 This is the second post in a series I originally wrote for my other blog in September 2012. To go to the first post click here.

Here are the top 16-30 most commonly challenged books from 2000-2009, according to the ALA. The bold ones I have read. My comments below the title. The links lead to their Amazon.com pages. In the case of a series, it either goes to a box set, or the first book in the series.

16. Forever, by Judy Blume
I have not read it, though I certainly intend to sometime soon.

17. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker

18. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
This is a very interesting book. When I read it, about a year or two ago, I found it very sad. Unlike many books, I understand why this book would be banned. At the same time, this book kind of opened my eyes to another world, which I do not think is a bad thing.

19. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

 20. King and King, by Linda de Haan
 I have not read this, but I think it is really sad that cute picture books make it on to these lists.

21. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
One of my favorite books. Being narrated by a little girl brings a whole new perspective to the story that makes it very memorable.


22. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
I haven't read this series, and don't intend to. Rather shallow, and just not my type of thing. If I get really bored, I might check out the first book though... :)

23. The Giver, by Lois Lowry
This is the first dystopian sci-fi novel that I ever read. From that point on, it has one of my favorite genres. This is a really great book!

24. In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
I haven't read it, but it looks cute.

 25. Killing Mr. Griffen, by Lois Duncan
I hadn't heard of this book before, but the description looks interesting... 

26. Beloved, by Toni Morrison

27. My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier
I was eight when I read this book, so I don't remember it all very well, but I know I loved it. It is is a very moving book, and I highly recommend it.

28. Bridge To Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
A sad, but good book. I enjoyed it.

29. The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney
I have not read this book yet, but I intend to soon.

30. We All Fall Down, by Robert Cormier
Also on my To-Read list.

Well, that's in for today. Come back tomorrow for books 31-45. 


I have read 12/30 of the banned books reviewed so far. How many have you read?

Camp NaNoWriMo 2012: Week -1

Each of the last two Novembers, I have participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which is a program where the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Each year, I have succeeded in my goal of 50k words.

Now, this April, I am going to do Camp NaNoWriMo, which is kind of like off season novel writing. Because 50k is a lot of work, and I do not have as much time right now as I did in November, I am taking advantage of the custom word count goals, and setting my goal at 30,000 words. Having done 50k twice now, I know that 30k will be very achievable, but still takes some dedication and hard work.

This last November, my novel did not go very well, and I ended up switching up ideas part way through, which meant that I did not end up with a complete novel. I think part of my problem was that I planned out my plot a little too much. Now, I know planning works well for some people, but for me, when ever I plan too carefully, I get stuck at some point and end up stalled out there.

Because of that, I am going to try going the totally opposite direction this April. I am not going to plan anything at all. I have no idea who my characters are going to be, or what my story will be about. Also, with only 30k words, I can focus a lot more on the story as I write it, since I won't need to worry so much about just getting words written.

Since I only need to write 1000 words a day, it should not be too time consuming, but it will also help keep me in the writing mood. :) They also do Camp NaNoWriMo in July, and I hope to do it then as well, probably with a smaller word count then too. That will help me stop getting too rusty by the time NaNoWriMo comes around again.

Every Tuesday from now until May, I will write a quick post about how the writing is going. I will have all the normal posts as well during that time, though many of them will probably have been written ahead of time and just be published then to give me more writing time.

Is anyone else going Camp NaNoWriMo this April?

Writing in Books

Please remember that anything you read here is just my opinion, and not a fact by any means. This is just the way that I think of books from my own reading experience. Some of my opinions are also influenced by my own, limited, writing experience. Also, if you want more info about any book I mentioned, click on the title to go to it's Amazon page. They are not all linked yet, but I will try to get them all done with in a week or two.  

6/2/2013 Edit: The link in parenthesizes will lead you to the amazon page for the title that the link is. Sometimes I was able to find that book, or sometimes, if it was a series, it will be a box set or the first book. 

In a book review I wrote recently, I talked briefly about the different kinds of writing I notice while I am reading. I thought I would go into a little more detail about that now.

First of all, I am just referring to the style, not the mechanics. I am only talking about the impression I get while reading the book, not their vocabulary and sentence structure. Also, I see this as a scale, not a set of options. Let's start on the "bad" end of the scale, and move towards the "better" books. I put those words in quotations because I am not sure they are the best words to use, but they'll have to do.

Far at one end are things like the (The Baby-Sitters Club #1: Kristy's Great Idea: Classic Edition) Babysitter Club. I mention that series because I really liked it when I was about seven, but more recently, when I picked up one of them, my inner editor nearly had a nervous breakdown. The writing was even worse then the plot, which was pretty terrible.

Then, as you move down the line are things like (the The Twilight Saga Complete Collection) the Twilight series, or Eve and Adam. With both of those books, I enjoyed them well enough while I was reading them, but then afterwards, when I thought about them, I could not think of anything I liked about them. The plot was uninteresting, the characters were mediocre at best, and the writing was nothing to speak of. Not bad, but not good either.

Now we reach the middle. I am never quite sure what to think about those kinds of books. In some ways, they are almost the best kind of books, while in other ways they are just in the middle of the pack. In this section, we many books. Things like Origin, Harry Potter, and Percy Jackson are all in this category. Actually, I think most great kids books fall in this area. These books are the ones where the writing is good, but nothing spectacular, but the plot is good. What makes or breaks a book with this kind of writing is the story. With something like Harry Potter, the words begin to fall away, leaving the story behind. These are often the fastest reads, because the words won't bog you down. You are simply experiencing the story, not the words. Other books in this category don't have as great a story as Harry Potter, and tend to fade into the background, unless they are kids books. Kids love this kind of writing, because it takes no real work on their part.

Now we move into books were the writing is better then the story. It is my personal belief that many "classics" fall into this category. One example of this is Charles Dickens. I have only read a few of his books, but in each of them, the writing struck me more then the story did. This is not to say that the story is bad by any means. I am simply saying that the writing was more impactful the the plot. These books are often the ones that can be the most difficult reading, because it is easy to get stuck on the long words, or the great descriptions, and lost sight of the story, how ever great it might be. I have done this myself several times. I will get too bogged down by the very expressive writing of something like The Red Badge of Courage, and lose interest the story, and then get bored by the whole thing. I think these books are certainly worth reading, but I think that we put a little too much stock in them sometimes.

On the end of the scale are what I would call "great books." In this category are books which have a great story, and amazing writing. I think that these books are often overlooked in favor of the ones  I described above. One book that struck me as "great" when I first read it was East of Eden by John Steinbeck. In this book, the writing as the plot work hand in hand, and are on exactly the same level. Another book I would call "great" is Louis L'Amour's The Lonesome Gods. In both of those books, it is the mixture of the writing and the story that make it great. I think the best books are not always the ones that win the prizes, or are taught in the schools, but they are out there if you look hard enough. They might not always be the easiest reading, but they are always worth it.

So there you have it. My scale on the quality of books. Do you agree with me? Do you think I put those books in the right categories? Where do you think some of your favorite books fall? If you have any more examples of any of these categories, let me know in the comments, and I will happily add them to this post. 

*This post contains affiliate links.

Homeschool Fridays: Stereotypes

Seriously. We aren't. This post will be a list of annoying stereotypes that most homeschoolers hate. Some of these stereotypes are true for many homeschoolers. They just aren't true about me, or my family. Well, I might add a few that do apply, just for fun. :D Can you think of any other stereotypes? Let me know and I'll do another one of these posts.

1. Homeschoolers are all super religious, wear denim jumpers, never cut their hair, or wear make up. We also have huge families.

Um, no. I know homeschoolers like this. I know that their are lots of homeschoolers who are like this. I am not. My friends are not. Actually, no one in our homeschool group is like this. Well, there have been a few people like this who have come to park day a few times, but I think maybe we scared them away. :)

I do know several large families (7-14 kids), but most of our group has 1-4 kids. There's just two of us kids in my house.

2. We are ultra hippie, with kids with crazy names, who don't approve of modern society or learning, and homeschool to get away from all the rules.

This is like the opposite of #1. Also, SO not us. I have known a few homeschoolers who are most certainly like this. We are NOT. As for crazy names, some popular names in our group are Henry (we have two!), Isabelle (2 or 3), and Sarah (at least two). Those all sound like normal names to me. :)

3. We never leave the house, or see other kids. We never watch TV, or listen to popular music, or read popular books.

This may just be the exact opposite of me. :) Some of my favorite TV shows include Lost (I am only in Season 2), Downton Abbey, Eureka, Earth 2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Roswell. I listen to music constantly. I love popular music, though I generally go for a more indie-rock mix. :) As for books, well, I have had free reign at the library since I was seven. My parents have never censored what I read. I read a lot, and I love it. Of course, if you have read my blog at any length, you already know all of this.

As for never leaving the house, Here is a look at my week: Monday, clean books at library with two friends. Tuesday: Host American History class (includes about 17 kids). Wednesday: Park Day, which probably has close to 40 kids some weeks. Thursday is currently my day off, where we don't go anywhere and I catch up on school work, though soon I'll have a stained glass taught by a friend's mom. Friday, Isabelle has soccer, and I usually go hang out with a friend who also has siblings doing soccer, or I talk with some of the moms, though recently I have been staying home and doing school. Weekends are usually errands and activities all day long, including Irish Dance and Choir with some friends. Don't ever socialize? I don't think so.

That's all for now. I know these aren't many, but if you think of more, let me know, and I'll do another one of these posts. 

Banned Books: Part One

This post is the first in a series that I published on my old blog back in September 2012. Over the next few weeks, I will be reposting them on here. It has been edited for relevancy.

I have always been intrigued by the idea of banned books. Personally, when ever I hear that a book is banned somewhere, that makes it something of interest. I am always curious why people ban books, and it also makes me sad. Books are meant to be read, not hidden away from interested people. Many of my favorite books are "banned books," and so I wanted to share some of them with you.

Here are the top 15 most commonly challenged books from 2000-2009, according to the ALA. The bold ones I have read. My comments below the title. The links lead to their Amazon.com pages. In the case of a series, it either goes to a box set, or the first book in the series.

1. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling

This series is wonderful. While the writing may not be the best ever, the story is really amazing. One of my favorites ever.


2. Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
I began reading this series at the age of eight. Last week I read the newest book. This series is most certainly in my top three.

3. The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier

 4. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
 I have not read this book, but it's amazon.com page looks absolutely adorable. 

 5. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
I read this book this summer, and really liked it. It is sad, but it feels very, very real. This book really made me stop and think, "What would I have done in that situation? Could I have done what I had to?"

 6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

 7. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz

 8. His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
This series is really a bit weird. I really don't want to know what's going on in Phillip Pullman's head. At the same time, I really did enjoy it.

 9. ttyl; ttfn; l8r g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
I read the first book in this series a LONG time ago. I did not really enjoy it that much, though now I can not remember anything about it.

 10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
I have not read this book yet, though I mean to soon.

 11. Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
 Again, I have not read this book, but it looks really good, and I hope to read it soon.

12. It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
My mom got this from the library when I was about ten. It is... through.  You can probably guess what it's about. :)

13. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey

14. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
A really fun book. Great for the 10-13 age range. I am pretty sure it is banned because of the language, but I honestly did not think it was that bad.

15. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison


 So far, I have read 7/15. Not bad. :) How many have you read?

Do you have any additional thoughts about these books? If so, post them in the comments, and I will add them to this post. I would love to have some thoughts about each book by someone who has read it, if possible.