Speaking Out Against Hate and Discrimination

I don't usually write controversial posts here, but due to some trouble I got myself into on Facebook recently (long story... and this post will be long enough) I ended up engaged in some dialogue that left me with some stuff on my mind.

In one part of the conversation that ensued (via email) I stated that I have no tolerance for mistreatment of those who are marginalized (in reference to the LGBT community in this case, though that sentiment goes for those who are marginalized for other reasons as well), and that statement was twisted around to say that I have no tolerance for "anyone who does not agree with (my) position on LGBT issues." Hmm. I thought long and hard about these two sentences, and what they really mean.

Here is the thing. I am tolerant of alternative viewpoints. You have your beliefs, I have mine. We can debate all day about who should be president, or whether or not there should be standardized testing, vegan vs paleo, or whether we should or shouldn't go to war with another country. There are thousands of issues to which I might have a very different opinion than you, and we can disagree and the world will keep on turning.

But where I draw the line is when someone's beliefs or viewpoints are harmful or discriminatory to other humans. If someone is going to insist that being gay/lesbian/trans or otherwise non-binary is a "sin" (more on that in a moment) and they do things to deny this segment of the population their basic human rights and liberties, then I will not be tolerant of that. I will not stand by and be silent as they tell other humans that they are bad, they are less, they are "disgusting" or that they are not worthy of the same rights as the rest of us. That is not simply "having a different opinion." That is hatespeak, and that is harmful to us all. If you spread this kind of hateful rhetoric, you are propagating hate, plain and simple.

Intolerance of discrimination is not a slam against or an infringement upon anyone's religion. We are ALL entitled to pray to whatever God we want, to practice whatever religious rituals we want, to celebrate whatever holidays we want, or even to not participate in any religion at all, for that matter. But human decency goes beyond religious doctrine. Treating fellow humans the way we would want to be treated is the most important principle in all faiths. 

Let's talk for a minute about this whole "being gay is a sin" concept that so many people use as an excuse to discriminate. It's important to remember that the bible was written a really, really long time ago, long before the time when science determined that humans are BORN gay... it's a biological variation. Research has shown that homosexual brains look visibly different in brain scans. Being gay is not a choice any more than having autism or epilepsy or blue eyes or brown skin or flat feet is a choice. It's how you're born, it's how God made you... how can that possibly be a sin? However, mistreating those who are born different IS a choice. And THAT most definitely goes against the teachings of the bible... "You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these."

Here's another thing about LGBT discrimination, particularly for perceived religious reasons. I know several people who grew up gay/trans/non-binary in religious homes, where homosexuality was considered a sin. They were taught their whole lives that being gay is this terrible thing, which is really traumatic to someone who knows in their heart that they are gay. These people grew up hearing from their parents, their families and their church that THEY were bad, that THEY were sinful, and all suffered deep scars as a result. How is this not child abuse? Since being gay is about biology and not sin, an anti-gay religious family is just as likely to give birth to a gay child as any other family. But the child in the anti-gay home is far more likely to commit suicide or engage in self-harm than the child who comes from a loving, accepting family. And what of the children from these households who are not gay themselves? They are being taught to view other humans as less, to perpetuate discrimination, and that is tragic.

I grew up in a world where being gay was no big thing. There were gay people in our lives, but we never really even talked about the fact they they were gay... they just were, and it was just the way it was. I didn't know that some people thought it was a bad thing until late elementary/middle school, when kids would throw around hateful words like "fag." I'm guessing these bullies learned this stuff from their parents. Horrible.

I'm really proud that I've raised my own kids to be more accepting. By the time my daughter turned five, she had been to three weddings. The first was for my two uncles, the second was for friends... two beautiful brides, and the third was for other friends, a man and a woman. I remember  a few years later having to explain to my kids about how some people thought people of the same gender shouldn't be married. The response? "Well, that's stupid. People should marry whoever they want." From the mouths of babes.

But it's not enough to teach our kids to accept others... it's also important to teach them to stand up against bullies and haters... to protect the rights of those who are marginalized. And that doesn't just apply to homophobia. Decent people stand up for those who need help, whether the bullying is about homophobia, racism, sexism, or any other -ism. Silence is acceptance. I will never be silent. 

Autumn in New England

It is currently Autumn here in New England, and I must say, this is pretty much the best place to be this time of year. We're well into our routines of the homeschool year, which keeps us pretty busy, but we're still managing to find time to enjoy ourselves with all the wonderful things that fall has to offer. Here's a little glimpse into what we've been up to...

We've been visiting several farms, and acquiring pumpkins, mums and many, many apples... 

We've been doing lots and lots of preserving Autumn's bounty of apples...
applesauce, apple butter, dried apples. And of course, we've baked some pies!

We've been doing some fall gardening... clearing
out the vegetable beds, cutting back the
 perennials, and planting fall bulbs.

We've been "Falling Up" our home, with mums and pumpkins 

We're "Falling Up" the inside of our home too... 

...and doing some Fall crafts...
 like these beeswax-dipped leaves.

We've got lots more fun Fall things planned for the coming weeks... day trips, adventures, crafts, and more. Have I mentioned how much I love Fall in New England? ;)

The "Wonder Why" Board

About four or five years ago, I read a wonderful book called The Rhythm of Family: Discovering a Sense of Wonder Through the Seasons by Amanda Blake Soule. I absolutely adored everything about this book, and flipped through it quite often through the years. It's chock full of reflections, ideas and activities for each season of the year.

One of the ideas in this book was to create a "Wonder Why" board... a place to post all those questions kids pose throughout the day, that we don't always know the answer to immediately. By putting those questions up on the board, you don't forget about them before they get answered properly, as often happens when kids are asking questions while you're trying to get dinner on the table or pay bills. It's a nice message to send to kids, that their questions are important even if you can't help them answer a question right now. After the a question gets posted, someone else in the family can answer it if they know the answer already... otherwise, you can look up the answer together when you have a moment.

Our original "Wonder Why" Board
 circa 2011

We created one of these boards about four years ago, when the youngest kid was about 6. We had it hanging up in our homeschool area of our kitchen, where everyone in the family could see it. We all posted questions and answered them for each other, and it was great fun. We kept it going for a couple of years, but then slowly the kids lost interest and then we renovated our kitchen and Wonder Why Board was no more.

A question from our new Wonder Why Board

But then... the other day, out of the blue, my youngest (the biggest question-asker in the family) suddenly remembered The Wonder Why board, and asked if we could bring it back. Since I get absolutely giddy when my kids show curiosity and initiative, I immediately dropped what I was doing to dig out the old magnet board and some index cards. We hung the board up in the playroom, with a basket of index cards and pens next to it, and it's been in good use this week. I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed the Wonder Why board! I'm very happy to have it back in our home.

The Wonder Why Board is back! 

Not-Back-to-School, 2015!

A week and a half ago we started our 2015-2016 homeschool year! It's all been a bit of a blur, and we're still figuring out our groove, but so far, so good!

The table, all set for our Not-Back-to-School Breakfast

We started our year as we always do, with a special "Not-Back-to-School" Breakfast. I really enjoy this ritual. I make something a special for breakfast (this year was waffles with apple compote!) and I give each child a small gift. As homeschoolers, we are technically always learning, but after a summer of looser schedules and fewer activities, it's nice to have a an official "start date" to get us back into a more structured frame of mind. Now that the kids are mostly teens, there is far more structure to our school year than when they were little, but that's OK, and to be expected.

We do a lot more in the way of outside classes and activities than we they were littler, and as such there is a lot less "home" in our homeschooling. This is where things get tricky for me, as I am the keeper of the schedule, and the person in charge of making sure everyone gets where they need to go when they need to get there. To make this easier on myself, I have FINALLY embraced the technology of using the calendar on my phone. Yes, I know. It took me long enough. I STILL use my big wall calendar, but the phone calendar has definitely been so helpful in managing everything. I love the alerts! (Yes, I know... most of you have been doing this for years... I'm a bit slow on tech!) Because we've had sort of a rolling start to our activities, it's given me a chance to slowly acclimate to our new routines, which has been nice. Some classes and such started the first week of September, some the second week, and now a few more things are starting up this week. It's been nice to kind of ease our way into the busy-ness of the year. By the first week of October, we'll be in full swing. I hope I'm able to keep up!

I've been working on lots of ways to try to keep things running smoothly and peacefully this schoolyear... meal planning and prep stuff, organizational things, etc.  I'm hoping to share some of those things here, in the next week or so... so come back soon! ;)

Reorganizing the Homeschool Area

The last couple of weeks there have been lots of school-year preparations going on! I've been making plans, ordering supplies and books, figuring out schedules and getting our homeschool cabinet all cleaned up and reorganized for a new year of learning.

With another homeschooler on board this year, we're doing a lot of shifting things around. To organize the cabinet and make everything we need to have in there fit, we needed to pretty much do a complete revamp. I pulled everything out of the cabinet, eliminated things we no longer needed, then put back all the things we still need, along with our new supplies for this year. It feels good to have a fresh, clean start!

Here's what our homeschool cabinet looks like this year:

Our Homeschool Cabinet, in the corner of our kitchen.
The cabinets themselves are from Ikea's "Billy" bookcase collection.
To the left of this is our Command Center Wall, which is
also a pretty important part of our homeschool area.  

The top two shelves in the far left cabinet are for my "teaching"
supplies... books, my binder, paper clips, tacks, stickers, sharpies,
highlighter, etc. And a little crocheted rag doll my darling daughter
 made for me, which I love. The next shelf has pens, pencils, rulers,
protractors, erasers and a pencil sharpener. The closed storage beneath
holds science stuff: books, microscope, various lab stuff. 

The next section... we have a 3D cricket puzzle, a box of math
manipulatives and a bunch of assorted math books tucked into
magazine files. Below the math stuff, we have our Nature Shelf.

A closer look at our nature shelf, still filled with Summer Treasures... black-eyed
susans and mint from the garden, a chunk of wasp nest, a cool stick, a hawk feather,
some beach rocks and some sea shells from our visits to the beach. Soon we'll be
replacing the summer stuff with things we find out and about on our fall adventures.

The cabinet beneath the Nature Shelf contains the kids'
laptop and computer accessories, and space for each child's
individual books, notebooks and daily work. The two younger
boys have their daily work in tote bags... the two older kids
mostly do outside classes, so they just have their stuff on the shelf,
and take whatever they need with them for their classes. 

The tower in the corner has assorted reference books, and
some boxes containing word games and maps. In the jars, we
have some writing prompts, in case anyone needs inspiration.

In the next cabinet, we have back-up supplies (extra paper, notebooks, pens, etc)
 in the boxes on the top shelf, and other small supplies in the baskets below.
Under that we have a map and a globe, and assorted paper. 

I'm planning to put cute little tags on the baskets to label them, but at the
moment they are labeled with post-its stuck to the back of the shelf. My youngest
says he actually likes them labeled this way, so maybe it will stay like this.
In the closed storage below, we have Noodle's extensive collection of car magazines
(which aren't really school-related, but it's the only place in the
house where I can keep them tidied up, out of sight!)

So that's it! Our homeschool corner for the 2015-2016 school year! Our official "first day of (not)school" is this coming Wednesday! We're looking forward to another year of living and learning together, and sharing many grand adventures. 

PS... If you're interested in seeing previous posts about our homeschool area, you can find them below:

2013 homeschool area post
2014 homeschool area post

Trouble in the Hive...

It's been quite a while since I've posted about my beehive... since we've had a lot of action happening in there of late, it seems a good time for an update!

The beehive was strong and healthy and growing at a very rapid pace for the first several months. We added as second brood box, and the bees were quickly filling it up with eggs, brood, pollen, and a pretty good amount of capped honey! Then one day in the beginning of August, as I inspected my hive, I noticed there was some capped brood, but no new eggs or larvae.This is a very bad sign... it means that the queen bee is dead, or otherwise no longer viable. Oddly, the bees had been quite agitated the previous week when I had inspected... so agitated, that one of my normally docile bees stung me. My guess is that our queen (whom we had called "Alice") was in trouble then, hence their unrest.

Once I determined that Alice was definitely gone and our hive was definitely queenless, we needed to go about trying to requeen the hive. This is sometimes tricky business, as the hive sometimes rejects a new queen. So, we ordered a new queen from an apiary in Georgia, and upon her arrival, we placed her in the hive, and waited patiently to see if she'd be accepted. After a week, I inspected the hive again. I inspected all ten frames in the top brood box, but found nothing... no queen, no eggs, no larvae. Onto the bottom box... one frame after another... same story: no queen, no eggs, no larvae. About seven frames in, the bees started getting angry. They were buzzing quite loudly, and giving me plenty of warning bumps. One stung me on the wrist. I hoped this meant I was near the queen, and sure enough... on the 19th of 20 frames, I found my new queen (dubbed "Elizabeth" by my cousin, in hopes that she would have a longer reign than Alice!) Along with the queen I found some eggs and brood... hooray! The 20th frame was also full of eggs and brood, so it appears that our hive may be back on track.

In other news... oh my gosh, you guys... it's almost time for the homeschool year to start! We have SO much happening this coming school year. I've been very busy getting our supplies ordered, cleaning out the homeschool cabinet, and getting everything ready! Next post, I'll be sharing some of our preparations, and give you a little peak at our homeschool space.

Old House Blues...

There is a lot to love about living in an older home... the quirky architectural features, the charming details, the sense of history... but along with the cool things there are also quite a few headaches to deal with. Our antique home is always full of surprises, and most of them are both unpleasant and expensive to remedy! Our home was built in 1895, and since I bought it in 2007, I have dealt with things like crumbling walls, rotted studs and subfloors, outdated/unsafe electrical and plumbing, and much, much more. The good news is, we've replaced and repaired so much, that our house has increased in value quite a bit! The bad new is, there is ALWAYS something else going wrong that needs to be fixed, and small repairs often end up turning into much bigger projects (like the time we tried to replace a light fixture in our living room, and found tons of old illegal knob-and-tube wiring which needed to be replaced to the tune of $5000!)

Small part of the
hallway in progress

Currently, we're in the midst of several projects all at once. We didn't really mean for it to be that way, it just sort of happens sometimes with these old houses. First, we were in the process of insulating and replacing windows in our basement TV room, because we've had major problems with frozen and bursting pipes the last couple of winters. We're hoping that better insulation will prevent it from happening again this winter. We have a friend/handyman helping us with that project, as well as fixing the shower down there, which has been on the "to be fixed" list for several years. Meanwhile, we decided to start fixing up the hallways and stairwell, which have suffered some water damage and general wear-and-tear to the old horsehair plaster. That project is still in progress, as it turns out things were in worse shape than anticipated, and our summer has been waaay busier than expected, so we just haven't been able to get it done.

While all this was happening, we ended up with an unexpected plumbing issue, which resulted in this:

Our plumber had to break open the wall to replace some old pipes and such. Since the wall is already torn apart, we're thinking it's probably finally time to get rid of the tile walls we hate, and finally renovate this bathroom. More on that, as it happens! Additionally, we need to have a bit more electrical work done in the basement. And so on, and so on...

In midst of all these home repairs, we've also had to start thinking about the start of the school year! Can you believe that it's mere weeks until Labor Day?? I've already started reorganizing our homeschool corner, ordering supplies and planning out what we'll be doing come September. It's going to be quite an interesting year for me as a homeschool mom... this year I'll be homeschooling two high schoolers, a middle schooler and a fifth grader, and I'll be working part-time. I'm hoping I can handle it all.

Next post... I'll be talking about the latest goings on in my beehive!