It’s strange to think of myself as being unschooled, but it seems to be true. It was part of an interesting dual existence – part-time schooling and part-time unschooling. I didn’t even think of it as unschooling until an astute parent pointed it out at our local unschooler’s support group. I think it accounts (on some level) for my general disregard for authority and groupthink.

A few weeks ago, when it was still so warm that we hadn’t busted out our winter coats yet, I found this fellow sauntering across our dining table. Sauntering extremely deliberately, possibly due to a missing forelimb. It was pretty cool, and the colors on its wings were gorgeous (something I haven’t quite been able to capture on, er, ‘film’).

I’ve been thinking a lot about community lately, thanks to two books I’m reading at the moment: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals . Subject-wise they are very different – the former is an indictment of education in America, the latter traces the origins of 4 meals, revealing a lot about agribusiness and nutrition in the process. Yet both books spend time extolling the virtues of community.
This morning we read some terrible news – our …

Early last week we got a subscription renewal request from National Geographic – except our subscription hadn’t even started yet. We knew they’re very thorough in their subscription renewal mailings, but this was a new level of efficiency.
OK – the title over-dramatizes our life without mindless tv watching, but it was coincidental that our current subscription started the day I cancelled the satellite tv. They seemed to have paused a bit after cashing our check (a sweet $10 subscription that came out of nowhere) and sent 3 at once. …

This year we told the folks that we weren’t going to be exchanging gifts, except for giving to the kids in the family. This was primarily due to budgetary reasons, but it’s been oddly freeing. The way it worked in our family was everyone exchanged lists, which family members consulted when buying. This resulted in no unwanted gifts. Upon further reflection, this method is a total sham since there wasn’t any thought involved in the giving. So it seems like we were just spending money …