My first meme

Krystal joined the AWC book group and added me as a friend over at goodreads, so I gave her blog a gander. Her current post was this "interview me" meme, so I asked for it. ;) I spent way too much time on it, but they were thoughtfully asked questions, and deserved some thought. Here goes!

Questions:

1. What was it (factors, experiences..) that made you decide to homeschool?
2. Who taught you how to knit, and how old were you?
3. If you had to move away from your home state what other state would you want to move to?
4. People have lots of assumptions/misconceptions about the Mormon faith, just as many people have assumptions about homeschooers, what is the assumption, or misconception that annoys you the most and you feel yourself constantly defending/adressing (either verbally, or mentally).
5. If you could dine alone with anyone from any period of history which person would it be?


1. I had always considered homeschooling, but put my kids in school to begin with. Then one year, things came to a simmer. My first grade dd was slightly behind in reading and very, very aware of it, and started tantruming every morning, “I hate school, you can’t make me go!” Meanwhile, my 4th grade ds was failing abysmally, had already tested too intelligent for “resource.” Well, duh, I could tell you he’s brilliant, yet stubborn. And isn’t a learning disability defined by mis-matched intelligence and performance? He’s the epitome of that. He had a terrific, caring teacher, who treated both of us with respect, yet we couldn’t figure out what to do to help ds perform. He had a 47% at Christmas time. DS was also chronically late. He couldn’t transition worth beans (e.g. get out of bed, get dressed, eat, leave the house, etc – it was all torture). And when I finally started getting him out the door on time, I learned from the neighbor that he was goofing off for about 20 minutes a day during his ONE BLOCK walk to school. I was getting gentle pressure from the principal to get him to school on time, no matter what, or I could be reported to Family Services. For tardiness. I almost snapped that year from feeling like I *was* perpetrating child abuse by making my 1st grader go to an environment where she felt like a loser, and was going to be blamed for child abuse for *not* pushing my 4th grader to the point of abusive behavior. So I didn’t send them back after that year.

That said, I love the freedom a family has when the kids are home. Sleep in? Sure. Go to the library three times a week? We’ve got the time. Travel out of town? There’s no “every class, every day” truancy law to consider. You want to skip math indefinitely? Go ahead – we *will* get to it later. I want my kids to learn to love reading by curling up with a Calvin and Hobbes for a few months. We’ve all the leisure in the world. They’re still kids, you know. And both thriving.
(some favorite links, here and here, too)

2. I first learned to knit from a friend of my mom’s. She also taught me to make pom-poms and decorate cakes. I must have been about 9 or 10, and it was a blast. I then forgot how to knit until a few years ago, when I re-learned from a book. But it took the patience of a friend to teach me how to hold the yarn and needles so that it flowed, rather than lurched. I love knitting. I must have made a dozen felted purses that first year.

3. Funny question about “home state.” I’ve had 5 home states, and one home island. I’ve been here for half my life now, so I consider this my home state. Where else would I go? Somewhere like here – I have a hard time embracing change. Some small sized community; not a big city, nor a 30-minutes-to-the-grocery-store small town, either. Temperate weather. This is about as cold as I can take. College town, maybe, for the diversity (cultural and political). Safe place to raise kids. Northern CA or Oregon.

4. Assumption/ misconception about Mormon faith? I don’t know if there are any big misconceptions about the Mormon faith these days. People pretty much know that we don’t practice polygamy. Perhaps the most frequent “problem” with the Mormon culture is that we tend to stick to our own. Especially in an area where Mormons are the majority, there is a tendency to assume things about people based on their Mormon-ness or non-Mormon-ness, and that is too bad. I think most majorities tend to do that to a degree: Irish Catholics, big-city liberals, Southern born-agains.... The world has a lot of terrific people in it, and we’re all the colors of the crayon box.

5. Dinner. With anyone. Hm. This has been the hardest question for me because there’s like a hundred perfect answers to this. I’m torn between my future self, not to tell the future, but to see if there is any advice I could give myself to do a good job with my life and my family. And Mary, the mother of Jesus, because hers is such a poignant story, and we know so very little of it. And the Dalai Lama – he’s such an example of optimism and happiness and peace! I don’t have any “fun” people on my list. Alexander McCall Smith would be an absolute hoot. Oh! This wouldn’t qualify as dinner “alone,” but wouldn’t’ you love to sit in on a dinner with Elizabeth Bennett and her entire family sometime during P&P?! That would be entertaining. Especially Mr. Bennett; he’s my favorite dad-character of all time.

Here are the meme details:
If you'd like to play along, just follow these instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. Be sure you link back to the original post.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.