A Lesson on Contentment. Be like Leo.

In June, I got rid of The Last Dog I’ll Ever Own after ten long years of a rather unhealthy, mismatched relationship. Don’t worry… Bingley is alive and well. We retired from each other and he is now living happily ever after in South Carolina. With an entire continent now between us, we’re both finally at peace… but that is a whole ‘nother story…

So, because I walk a lot for exercise, and because I like to walk at the beach, I signed on with a dog-walking business kind of like Uber. My app alerts me to nearby available walks, and if one looks appealing, I click to request it. If I'm accepted, I go walk the dog and the owner pays me through the app. So basically, I’m getting paid to walk when I want and where I want. Sweet deal! 

Anyway, this is Leo, a dog I’ve walked three or four times. He lives in the swanky part of Manhattan Beach. I try to snag a walk with him every time his name pops up. Together, we travel the Strand, a long well-kept walkway flanked by the ocean on one side and immense, gorgeous homes on the other. 

Leo, a young lab mix, is hands down THE most enthusiastic, upbeat, happy fellow I’ve ever walked. His joie de vivre (aptly defined as an exultation of spirit), is absolutely infectious. When we pass other dogs, he bounds high into the air like a spirited Lipizzan stallion, full of playfulness and totally oblivious to whether the other dog wishes him well or ill. When he sees that we’re approaching a drinking fountain or water bowl left out by generous residents, he bounces joyfully skyward and leaps toward it, overjoyed with the opportunity to grab a cool drink. When he catches a whiff of some new scent in the air, he throws his nose heavenward and gulps down the aroma with eyes half-closed. Every so often, he "boops" my hand with a gentle open mouth, as if to say, "Did you see that?! Wasn't it amazing??" When he gets hot, his tongue lolls crazily out the side of his mouth like a cartoon dog. Today we had some rare rain. Leo leapt up and tried to catch fat raindrops on his tongue. As we walk, passersby almost unfailingly smile or laugh at his enthusiastic pursuit of JOY.

But see that wicked looking collar around his neck? It’s a prong collar, designed to replicate a quick corrective “bite”, like the bite a dominant dog gives to a subordinate. When used properly, it’s ideal for very big, strong dogs. It allows the handler to correct and control the dog without harming it.

So Leo, while enjoying life to the max on his hour-long walks, does so within the limits provided by this formidable-looking collar. A quick tug on the usually loose leash gets his attention or keeps him from dashing off toward another dog. Yet, his obsessively upbeat attitude never, ever flags. He leaps and cavorts and smiles and bounces, but all within the confines of the boundaries set by his collar.

There’s a huge lesson in this for me. A lesson about contentment and living a principled life with structure while not letting the boundaries curb my joy. Joy and contentment actually come from living life within the limits set for me by the Lover of my soul. 

I want to be a lot more like Leo.

Let's Decrease World Suck This Week!

Things are rough right now. California is reeling under recent catastrophic wild fires and yet another mass shooting. The whole dang country is so polarized over so very many things. Everyone just seems mad or sad.

Today, our church hosted a Thanksgiving feast for the people who are part of our sack lunch program. We sat down with needy people from our community to share a meal and distribute supplies they may need. I sat next to a man named William. He’s a first-generation Irishman from North Dakota. His parents arrived in New York on the same boat, but they only met and married after they had settled in neighboring farms, just miles apart. William told me he lost everything in the fire last week, and he finds himself homeless for the first time in his 60 year life. He is divorced and has three grown kids, all between 20 and 30. He told me, near the end of our time together, that he hadn’t told them he was in this situation, out of fear that they would just not care. Gah.

It seems the height of selfishness for me to complain about anything, right? But somehow, I manage. While I’m FINALLY recovering from the one-two punch of a head and then a chest cold, I whine and moan that the time change has me feeling off balance and tired and irritable; my beloved sun shows its face for less and less time each day, as though it too is grieving the death of summer.

And yet, among all the things that seem wrong and bad and sad, I’ve felt some very welcome rays of light, brought to me through random acts of kindness. One of my Speakers League moms texted me to ask if she could bring me something from Starbucks to our meeting. That pumpkin spice latte helped me over the hump of a long and tiring week!

At Bible study, one of my ladies brought me a huge gift bag. Inside was an adorable llama-themed Christmas mug and a giant container of chicken tortilla soup. She said she knows I’ve not been well, and that this mug had made her think of me. Then, she made soup so I’d have something to put into it!

Two of my favorite people, brothers John and Hank Green (authors, YouTube celebrities) do this thing every December called Project For Awesome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_Awesome), as part of their Foundation To Decrease World Suck 

https://www.causes.com/causes/23692-foundation-to-decrease-world-suck/about. I love that concept. Their video blog encourages me to try to make the world just a little brighter or easier for someone in my sphere of influence. 

This week, as we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, I invite you to join me. Let’s do something unexpected and kind for a friend or even a total stranger. Pay for the meal for the car behind you in a drive-through. Ask a homeless guy outside a store if you can pick something up for him while you’re there. Pick up that pile of dog poop that some other jerk left on a stranger’s lawn. Write a quick note to someone who has brightened your day. Tell someone she has cute shoes. Let’s do something - anything - to decrease world suck this week!

12 Days of Bingley (Ode To The Last Dog I'll Ever Own)

Given that it's the holiday season, I thought I'd come up with my own twisted version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" in honor of Bingley, the last dog I'll ever own. Can I just say that this practically wrote itself? A tip of the Santa hat goes to my daughter Jennifer for her help, especially on the "five golden rings" line...

Feel free to pour a glass of eggnog (or any holiday beverage of your choice) and sing along! I'll just skip right to the last verse instead of typing all this disgusting stuff over and over...


On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my last dog gave to me...

Twelve tiny ulcers,
Eleven urgent vet trips,
Ten muddy paw prints,
Nine raided trash cans,
Eight cranky neighbors,
Seven piles of vomit,
Six flea-filled blankets,

FIVE BUTT JUICE STAINS!!!!!

Four pilfered plates,
Three wet floors,
Two tons of poop,

AND A YARD FULL OF SHREDDED PANTIES!!!!!

What's Next?

My favorite TV show -- ever -- is "The West Wing". Before I digress and launch into all the reasons why, I'll move on... but if you haven't watched it, you should.

At the end of most episodes, I'd look at Brian and say, of President Bartlet: " Best president we've ever had..."

Often, at the end of a plot thread, the President will calmly look around and say, "What's next?" It is a profoundly simple way to punctuate the fact that, as hard as this situation was, or whether it ended as expected or horribly, there is still work to be done. Let's move forward -- What's next?

In a "life imitates art" way, I now find myself at this same crossroads. Not only have I suddenly come to the end of my career as a homeschool teacher, having just graduated my school's only student, but as of next month, I'm also moving on from being a caregiver for my darling grand-niece. Little Lola is moving on to full-time preschool in September, so I'm looking at this pile of toddler toys in the corner of my living room and asking myself, "What's next?"

Before all this kid stuff happened, I was a cum laude graduate from the University of Southern California, sporting two bachelor's degrees. I worked at USC for four years, then moved into the business world. I made a crap-ton of money, and I had a ball, though I often worked 12-hour days.

And lemme tell you, those days are SO over. I never, ever, EVER want to work in an office again. So what do I do? If I could pick any way I want to bring home the bacon, it'd be by writing. So feel free to share this blog with everyone you know, so I can get sponsored and become fabulously wealthy.

But I am also one of those people who craves stability where paychecks are concerned. Contract work is great, because it keeps things fresh and new, and because I can pick and choose when I'm busy. But not knowing exactly when the next check is coming, and how big it's going to be, is very anxiety-producing for me.

So, I'm filling out an application for Trader Joe's. Because I'm not too proud to do a job like this, and because everyone who works there seems happy. Maybe they'll make me constantly happy too... But for a 53-year-old lady to walk in and say, "Here's my application. I know, I have the penmanship of a 5-year-old serial killer. Yeah, um, I'd love to work here. But Sundays are out. Monday nights are out. Wednesdays are pretty much shot. And I need a week off in October and December..." Will they just eject me with a derisive snort and a swift kick in the pants?

I have other ideas. Loads of them. But I gotta buy groceries starting September. So here goes...

And let's not get into the emotional wreckage of losing my own baby and my niece's baby all at once. Sure, to her credit, Lola is trying to make it easier on me. She's in the throes of potty training. Big, giant, messy poop in her big girl panties today. After I had thrown her in the shower with Jennifer to hose her off, she then sat on her potty and did a nice pee, at least. We both told her, "It's okay, Lola..."

"No, it's NOT okay," she answered.

A while later, Lola cheerfully exclaimed, "Deen (her name for me)! I take a bath!"

"Yes, that's because you had poop on you. Next time, if you have to go poop, you should go in the potty, okay?"

"Ooo! That's a good idea!"

I'm not gonna lie. It's gonna be hard, going from thirty hours a week with a kid that is arguably the cutest baby on the planet right now, to pretty much not seeing her at all. And as I type, my grown-up daughter is off on her first paying job with our church. She just texted that she'll be home late. My ever-patient-with-me hubby and I are watching the Olympics on TV. I'm hoping I don't wake up for a couple of hours tonight like I have the past several nights. It's so weird how quickly Jen left the nest. Sure, she's still here a lot. But it's different, all of the sudden. I knew it was coming. But nothing can really, truly prepare us for this, right? I'm just so grateful that we still get along, and that we sing in our chorus together. And that when she does come home, she hangs out in our room and, like, talks to us. So that's good.

But it's clearly time to figure out "what's next..."

I talk a good game, but inside, I'm kind of a mess. Don't hug me when you see me, okay? Or if you do, make up a fake reason. Otherwise, it just makes it worse...

Haikuesday

My stepdaughter Becky started it. One day, on her Facebook page, she posted a haiku, calling it Haiku Tuesday. I didn’t know it then, but it was the beginning of an era.

Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry with very specific parameters. It is a three-line poem, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five again in the third. Often, they reflect thoughts on nature or other deep truths. Mine are usually just sarcastic. An early version of haiku that’s just my style caught my eye. I’ve seen it in far too many places to know where it originated:

Haikus are easy.

But sometimes they don’t make sense.

Refrigerator.

The New York Times posts a blog that included a full page of cat haiku. This was my favorite:

You must scratch me there!

Yes, above my tail!

Behold, elevator butt.

Anyway, I began following Becky’s example by posting my own haikus each Tuesday. At some point, I changed it from “Haiku Tuesday” to, simply, “Haikuesday”.  I received so many “likes” that it encouraged my amateur endeavors, and a poet (or a monster) was created. 

What follows are some haikus I was able to find from my old Facebook posts. I’ve tried to group them by category, for posterity… and believe it or not, I’ve spared you from plenty of them…

Some haikus were inspired by my aging, menopausal body. Or by looking in a mirror:

Wake. Must pee. So cold.

Back to bed. Cozy. And then -

Hot flash! Covers off!

Why am I awake?

Alarm's not til 6:15!

Bad dream. Hot flash. Shoot.

I used to believe

errant, scraggly eyebrow hairs

just grew on old men.

So hot and sticky

my sports bra tried to kill me.

Contortions. More sweat.

Orthotics still squeaking.
Blaringly loud this morning.
Powder didn't help...

I miss Two Buck Chuck.
I miss sugar. But I won't
miss this muffin top.

It's 4:42

We're eating dinner right now.

Yes. We are old farts.

I see my own face
reflected in my phone's screen.
Huh. Who's that old broad?

Haikus inspired by sleep deprivation:

Sleep has been fleeting.

Guess I better learn to nap

so no one gets hurt.

Alarm?? Already???
Hardly slept a wink. Today,
caffeine is my pal.

I can't fall asleep.

That alarm will ring early.

Haiku doesn't help.

Napping's hard for me.

That was a great one! No. Wait. 

Just a short night's sleep.

My mom used to say,
"When you're tired, don't droop -- just add
a bit more makeup."

Real-live, true-to-form haikus often reflect on nature. This is probably my most non-sarcastic, legitimate effort:

Out of the ashes,
Coincidental beauty.
Forest fire sunrise. 

Here are some more — with my own spin — on nature:

Chance of rain today:

One hundred percent. Yay! But

drivers will be lame.

Morning fog gives way

to nourishing, warm sunlight.

Yet... car a/c broke...

This morning, God made
a cotton candy sunrise
worth waking up for!

This is pure madness.
So cold in Redondo Beach
I can see my breath.

I caused today's rain.
Yesterday I washed my car.
You're welcome, SoCal.

The wind's a bummer.

Tent flapping wildly. ALL. NIGHT.

Today's forecast? Wind.

It's gorgeous and hot.
No one wants to hit the beach?
Countdown to summer.

I do not like wind.
Wind makes me feel all antsy.
Careful, hummingbirds!

Blah blah blah blah blah
Blah blah blah June Gloom blah blah
Blah blah blah blah blah

This spring, while camping near Malibu, we took a brief foray onto the pier. In a swanky shop there, I spotted a sweater that sported a $1200 price tag:

Malibu shopping.
One sweater can feed nations.
Take me back to camp!

Sometimes, my haiku elicits responses in kind from my friends. One winter, I was bemoaning a particularly cold snap of weather (cold here in So Cal being, probably, around 50 degrees). Here’s what I wrote:

Are you kidding me?
Am I in Siberia?
Where is that sweatshirt...?

I got several haiku replies. Trevor, in Scotland, quipped:

What is the problem?
Come here and live in Scotland.
Just bring a good coat.

Julia (a local friend) added:

My tortoise is cold.
The answer might be fresh hay.
Timothy it is.

Jenny, in South Carolina, wrote:

It is so hot here
I would like to trade with you
Where is my winter?

Another “audience participation” haiku happened when I misfired:

Remember that time

I posted a haiku, but

it was Monday? Derp.

My friend Craig commented:

There is a product

Many people like to use

Called a calendar

Remember the kerfuffle that was sparked by Starbucks that December when they changed their cups to plain red, instead of bearing symbols of winter? A bunch of lunatic Christians raised an outcry, claiming that “Starbucks is anti-Christmas”. I posted this:

Hey, "Christians"? Hi there.
Please stop it about Starbucks.
You make us look dumb.

More holiday haikus:

It's St. Patrick's Day!

I'm pretty certain Patrick

never did haiku.

If only this gym

didn't close for the next week

I'd drink more egg nog.

So Daddy just read

"'Twas the night before Christmas. .."

Philbin Tradition...

And regarding Trader Joe’s Wintry Blend coffee (used to be called “Christmas Blend”, but who’s keeping track?):

"Past Doreen" is smart.

At Christmas, she bought extra.

Thank you, Past Doreen.

A new smartphone evoked strong emotions that had to make it into a few haikus:

My new phone woke me.
Not by making noise, but just
by being awesome.

Left phone at chorus.
Haiku's not wordy enough
to express my pain.

My phone's back with me.
Hush now. There, there... all is well.
Yup. I've gone mental.

Thought I left phone home.
Then I found it in the trunk.
Oh, my sweet preciouussss.

Here I’ve captured some observations about “The Last Dog I’ll Ever Own”:

Dark. Early. Cold fog.
Even the last dog I'll own
didn't want to rise.

Dog likes to lick feet.
Brian and Jen think it's gross.
Me? Hey... foot massage.

Dog twerks while he poops.

Why? Why must I watch him poop??

I know... TMI.

A fly's in the house.

How do I know? My last dog

hides under my bed.

Today my kitty
Turns nineteen years old. Let's hope
Bingley won't do that...

We occasionally have the fortune of a free day at Disneyland, thanks to some friends who are cast members. Here’s my favorite Disney-themed haiku:

Special Haikuesday!!
The Happiest Place On Earth
awaits us -- WOO HOO!!

As a homeschooler, I introduced my daughter Jennifer to haiku at a young age. One day, as we were sitting in the car, waiting forever for a woman to vacate a parking space, I composed this haiku on the fly:

This woman can’t drive.

She drives like a bulldozer.

Smile at the lady!

Jennifer ended up doing a speech in her public speaking class on haiku. In it, she made up a haiku about me:

Mom is very mean

She makes up some mean haikus.

Stop Mommy. Please stop.

Here’s the link to her whole speech - https://youtu.be/Jy12oYd2KQ0

Other homeschool-related haiku:

Daughter has a cold.

Homemade biscuits, junk TV,

priceless day at home.

Haircut today - yyyeeesss!
Then off to homeschool beach day.
Heat is my Prozac.

Since it's first beach day,
my teen thinks it is summer.
Still in bed. Homeschool.

When you are fifty,

Don't goof around in the store.

Huge knot on my shin. 

(I blame homeschooling for me chasing my teenage daughter around the store with a shopping cart. Crashed into a post.)

Off to jump more hoops

at community college.

Lord, help me be nice.

Our last WISH picnic.

This year is filled with "last things".

Breathe... Pray. New season...

For Lent this year, I gave up posting anything on Facebook other than a daily “God sighting”, with the hashtag #GodofMyEverything. Since a few Haikuesdays fell during the Lent period, I posted these:

Hardly slept last night.

Hot flash. Cat butt on my face.

"Yet will I praise Thee."

So, how to combine

Jesus with haiku? Easy --

God of My Haiku.

Hmm. Fit "hashtag God
of my Everything" in
to a haiku? Done.

Thinking up a new haiku each week isn’t easy. I can’t hit them all out of the park. Here was a Hail Mary clunker:

Oops! It's Haikuesday. 

Haven't done a haiku yet.

Shoot. Um, okay. Here.

Two offerings in honor of my husband Brian:

My man is soooo hot -
I just made the bed, and HA!
His pillow's still warm.

Twenty years?? Really??
Happy anniversary,
my dear Imzadi.

My more deeply philosophical haikus:

Yoga this morning
awakened in me deep truth:
It's time to vacuum.

TODAY, I CHOOSE JOY.
Janel sets great example.
So, JOY! (...and coffee)

Sometimes it's better
To ask forgiveness rather
than for permission.

So tired and crabby.
Mission for today: think first,
speak words of kindness.

The rest of these sort of defied a category, but I like them, so I’m just gonna leave them here:

Smoothie on the floor.
Sticky mess. Broken glass. Guess
I'll have cereal.

Left home for the day.
Would have been way better if
I had brought my purse. :-/

NOTHING'S working right.
Maybe... Jesus comes today?
Better stop cussing.

Did some gardening.
Branch cut my arm. To be fair,
it was self-defense.

Splashed on toilet seat?
Please wipe it up... you dang pig.
Signed, The Next Person.

I talk a good game.

Not scared of spiders - that is,

'til web smacks my face.

If dream was correct,

having tiger for a pet

would be frustrating.

There are few things a 

peanut butter and honey

sandwich can't improve.

Smothered by my pets.

Can't get up to make dinner.

Send peanut butter.

Jennifer tells me

my Dr Who intake is

dangerously low.

When you're really tired,

so tired you miss the off ramp?

Yeah. I hate that too.

Because they’re so cool,

They deserve their own haiku.

#alpacas 

(My friend Kim gave me props for using # as a two-syllable word)

This blog, by the way, was delayed, first by my own idiotic neglect, and then by a formatting war with Blogspot. I wanted to post it on an actual Haikuesday, but after spending a couple of weeks finding old haikus, and several hours putting it together, my computer turned off unexpectedly. When I plugged it back in, most of my work was gone. For some reason the auto-save feature failed me. Gah. So I posted this final haiku after wailing at my misfortune, blaming others even though they might have been trying to help  (sorry, Brian), and sulking off to bed:

Working on my blog.

Laptop battery just died.

Lost hours of work. Crap.

Then, I finally got it all into Blogspot, posted it, and found that all my formatting — putting haikus into neatly indented sections — was blown away. Then, I re-formatted it all by hand and found that Blogspot completely blew apart huge sections, even removing whole lines of my haikus. Son of a nutcracker!!!

Yes. A fourth attempt

to publish this [blanking] blog.

Four's a charm? Hoping...

Jennifer's Graduation Ceremony - Our Speeches.

And, just like that, we're all done!

The high school graduation ceremony we attended was part of the California Homeschool Network's annual EXPO -- a weekend convention loaded with things like seminars, spelling bees, a room dedicated to the teens so they had a place to hang out, a teen dance, and loads more. Whole families routinely cram into hotel rooms, often armed with hotplates and other cooking materials, to get through the weekend as economically as possible.

There were 17 total graduates, including Jennifer, this year. Each family was allowed a maximum of five minutes to present their child's diploma and to say a little something about their journey. They included a slideshow of pictures we all submitted - I, unlike several parents, did not include a picture of Jennifer as a toddler sitting on a potty!

Sue Patterson, an author and speaker in the homeschool community, spoke, and then it was our turn.

Here's what Brian and I said. I went first:

Jennifer, today marks the end of a season for us and for you. We've given you love, nurturing, and just enough dysfunction to make you funny! You've taught me so much about life and love. Being your teacher has been joyful, dramatic, hilarious, hugely rewarding, and it has proven to be both a giant blessing and the source of many lessons for me from God.

We did without a lot of things as a family in order to make sure one of us stayed home to raise Jennifer. We kind of stumbled into homeschooling. We figured, if I was going to be home all day anyway, well, why not? We've never regretted it for a moment. Homeschooling has shaped and defined me as much as it has our daughter.

One of the things I'd often say, half-jokingly, as Jennifer went off for a play date or any activity where she'd be away from me was, "Bring honor to the family."   

Jennifer, we want you to know you've nailed it. We are so very proud of you. Your life radiates beauty, passion and compassion for others. You are faithful and thoughtful, and whatever path you choose in life, we know you're going to make the world a little better with your special mix of weird and wonderful!

Then, Brian had his turn:

Doreen and I both share a rather odd sense of humor about a lot of things. Having a child together meant that that child was genetically predisposed to sharing in some aspects of that "odd-ness". I'm sure many of her friends would agree.

When Doreen says we "did without" as a family, that's not just the three of us, but it includes Jennifer's big sister, Becky. It was tough trying to make things work financially and still give Jenn a solid education. Becky's presence and influence also schooled Jennifer in other aspects of our humor and "odd-ness" and the value of sticking to something in order to make it happen.

Throughout Jennifer's school years, there were a lot of tears during math lessons, some during small arguments about priorities, even some periods during which I wasn't sure that homeschooling was the right thing to do. Overall, I can say from experience that the result is totally worth it.

The South Bay Homeschool Network (holla!), WISH (holla!) and EXPO provided many friends encountering the same struggles and some who'd been past all that. Seeing how others did it and even how we might do things differently was highly informative and valuable.

They say "it takes a village" – and it truly does. Jennifer's friends and experiences with these groups have strengthened not only her social skills and knowledge of other ways of doing things, but they've served to strengthen her resolve in other areas of her life, as well.

Jennifer, this is really the first of many different milestones you'll achieve in your life. Every time one challenge ends, there's another to begin - sometimes, you even have to start over from scratch. But I'm confident in your ability to meet those challenges. I'm very proud of the young woman you've become and I’m proud to be your dad. Congratulations, my sweetie! 

Jennifer followed up with her own brand of humor. She said something like, "I'd like to thank the Academy -- Samuel Cole Academy, that is." She thanked us and acknowledged her grandparents, saying that they would have shown up even if we'd done a private ceremony in our own living room. She said, "I can't tell you how many of my friends asked if that's what we do for homeschool graduation: stand in our living room and do a big ceremony!"

Jennifer was adorable. Her grandparents came out from Michigan to be here, which was amazing (our homeschool on file with the California Board of Education, Samuel Cole Academy, is named after Brian's grandfather. It is a great name, and he was a great guy, so it seemed fitting to preserve his memory this way). Our friends Courtney (from chorus) and Ashley (from church) came to the ceremony, as well as sister Becky, Becky's boyfriend Max and her roomie Natalie. Lots of our homeschool friends attended too, which was really great -- none of them had their own family in the ceremony, so this show of support sort of speaks to how wonderful this community is! She knew a handful of the kids who graduated with her, from different activities through the years.

We went to dinner afterwards at an Irish pub, where Jennifer could enjoy the "food of her people".

Jennifer is Graduating from High School - Homeschooling From the Rear-View Mirror

Every family has a different story of how they began homeschooling.  We sort of stumbled into it. And, as of this Sunday, we'll be officially finished.

My sister Debbie homeschooled her two youngest kids up until high school. When Jennifer was still a baby, she began sending me "propaganda" about homeschooling and encouraging me that I was basically already homeschooling with the activities we did together.

Two of the more convincing pieces of propaganda:

This YouTube video by Sir Ken Robinson: "RSA Animate: Changing Education Paradigms" https://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U -- it's super interesting to watch, as it's hand-illustrated while he's speaking to a crowd. Very cool format. Thought-provoking.

Also, a book called Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto. Tons of great quotes, including this one:

“Independent study, community service, adventures and experience, large doses of privacy and solitude, a thousand different apprenticeships — the one-day variety or longer — these are all powerful, cheap, and effective ways to start a real reform of schooling. But no large-scale reform is ever going to work to repair our damaged children and our damaged society until we force open the idea of “school” to include family as the main engine of education. If we use schooling to break children away from parents — and make no mistake, that has been the central function of schools since John Cotton announced it as the purpose of the Bay Colony schools in 1650 and Horace Mann announced it as the purpose of Massachusetts schools in 1850 — we’re going to continue to have the horror show we have right now.”

Brian and I had decided, long before she reached school age, that one of us would always stay home with Jennifer. For her first two and a half years, Brian was at home. Then, I got laid off from my lucrative marketing job for a computer products distributor. We decided we'd both look for work, and whoever found work first would go, while the other parent stayed home.

(Don't tell him this, but I didn't look very hard.)

Brian landed a job with American Honda, and I began my career as a stay-at-home mom, a job for which I will be forever grateful.

I figured, since I'd be home anyway, we might as well just homeschool! Aside from a couple of preschool classes at a local city-run community school, we've done it ourselves since the beginning.

I have always been a rather schizophrenic homeschool mom. I'd swing wildly between extremes. On the one hand, I'd declare a school holidays so we could hang out at the beach or at Disneyland or even just stay home and binge-watch TV (like Little House on the Prairie or Dr Who). Then, just as quickly, I'd absolutely flip out that Jennifer had done nothing but watch television all day. She took the whole thing quite calmly. Whenever I started to get antsy and worry that she wasn't learning enough, she'd say, "Relax, Mom. I'll do a math lesson."

Two great pieces of advice I received on homeschooling -- one was from my friend Tamah: "Doreen, just be sure you do enough schooling so that YOU sleep well at night. Jennifer will be just fine." The other was from a working actor, friend, and Jennifer's drama teacher in a homeschool co-op we loved. Maggie told me: "Let Jennifer follow her passion, and do all you can to support her in that pursuit. For everything else, just make sure she knows enough so that she's not embarrassed in a conversation at a party."

I've always approached Jennifer's education using the same approach that we, as adults, do. We learn things either because we have to, or because we find something fascinating and want to know more about it. Why on earth would I make her memorize facts about something in which she was completely uninterested, then make her vomit the facts back to me, and then move onto the next thing? Instead, we captured snails. We spent four solid hours one day, when she was only six, doing math, performing science experiments, writing poetry, and singing songs -- all using Google and a couple of garden snails.

I will never, ever regret the lazy days we spent together in our jammies; the mornings spent listening to The Mysterious Benedict Society while enjoying a tea party; the entire month we spent in Connecticut caring for my niece as she recovered from a brain injury, without worrying about falling behind on classwork; the year we bought Disney passes and methodically visited every single attraction at the park, using a spreadsheet to keep track; the endless hours spent at the beach, at museums, in local parks and in national parks with family and other homeschoolers.

We were NOT one of those homeschool families where we would rise to an alarm clock, get dressed, recite the pledge of allegiance, and spend hours working on assignments. Instead, we spent our time learning life skills, like how to change a flat tire, and taking field trips to whatever location or event struck our fancy. Jennifer was a late reader, but when she finally caught on, she'd ask to stay up late to finish a chapter of Emily Windsnap or Harry Potter -- and the answer was always a resounding YES. We rarely needed to rise early the next day.

There are so many more things I should, and will, write about homeschooling.

This weekend, Jennifer will graduate with about 18 other teens at the California Homeschool Network's annual EXPO. She is decorating her cap as I write this. She will wear Gryffindor robes. Brian and I will present her with a diploma from Samuel Cole Academy (named after her great grandfather), and all three of us will get to speak briefly to the audience. Jennifer's grandparents are even traveling from Michigan to be here for it!

Jennifer will begin community college in the fall - although she's already been there for a year, taking classes as a concurrently enrolled high school student. I'm very sad to have to give up control over our schedule - I'll have to resist the urge to make her stop studying to come play outside with me.