Yummy Enchiladas-Written and Cooked By Dodger

 

 Tonight we made enchiladas. They are completely made out of local food, at least the veggies are because they are from our garden! It was a lot of fun making them because I got to help. Plus I got to use our new bowling ball handled knife! I was cutting onions but refused to stop for so long that when I was done my eyes burned.

Here’s our recipe…

All the tomatoes green and red left in the garden, about 10 large and 30 smalls-sliced

Peppers, green and red from the garden-sliced

3 cloves of garlic smashed

1 small onion sliced

1 bunch of cilantro-chopped

1 tsp of cumin

1 tsp of coriander

Salt and pepper

2 Tblsp of olive oil

2 cups of water or broth

Sauté onion, garlic, spices in olive oil.  Add tomatoes, peppers, and water and simmer 30 minutes.  Purée into a sauce.

In other words we mixed it all together.  Then dip corn tortillas in the sauce, filled the sauce covered tortillas with refried beans and cheese or a filling of your choice.  Wrap and place in an oven dish.  Once you have filled and rolled all the tortillas cover with the remaining sauce and grated cheese and bake at 350F for 35 minutes.

Serve with rice and salad!

“If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting”-Jack Handy

The famous bowling ball handled knife

Puppets, long division and learning to read!

Keeping busy on the boat, Dodger reads out loud.

Dodger has been working on his narrative about our sailing trip so we'll post that soon!  The multi-day sailing trip was a success, if only that we learned that it is possible to live together, cook together, weather high winds together and even floss our teeth on our boat without a murder.  We sailed south and it was a mini adventure.  What impressed me so much is that the kids never seem bored even though we sailed hours and hours and hours.  Not that they don't crank and bicker and do what kids do (and grown ups too).  But I'm noticing that they seem to get along better these days and I can't help but think it has to do with the slower pace of life now that we aren't on a traditional school schedule.  It isn't uncommon these last few weeks to find the kids playing card games together or kicking the soccer ball around outdoors together or just generally being more supportive of each other and less competitive.  It could be the change in seasons or who knows what and its early days to say it is due to home schooling, but life has been more peaceful than usual on that front.

Searching for treasure on land

How have we been learning?  Well, a variety of ways.  We do math everyday we can...even weekends sometimes and Dodger is working on long division puzzles this week, I've included a photo of his "workings out book" which he seems proud of since it looks to him like a mad scientist’s lab book!  We are working in Math Mammoth, which is going well.  The kids have a clear idea what they need to accomplish and we do it.  Sailor has been storming through addition 1-10 and we've switched to telling time for something new before we begin subtraction 1-10.  We'll also be focusing on money this week since we are planning to sell baked goods (pumpkin pasties as a nod to H.P.) at the "Home School Bake Sale" to benefit a local homeless shelter on Friday.  This opportunity segues into learning about homelessness in our community.  Which is a subject worth understanding and changing, in my opinion.

We managed to combine art, literature and writing into our Flint Heart project.  We read the book "The Flint Heart" which is on the Dorothy Canfield Fisher award nominee list as well as about to become a movie next year!  After reading the book Dodger and I broke the story down into the 8-point-story-arc and then made a puppet show script.  The kids all made the puppets and we put on a show for Sailor and Kitten's birthday party.  We made a "doorway" theater in our kitchen using fabric and cedar decorations.  The show was a hit and the kids now have puppet skills under their belts.  By creating the characters into puppets we had lots of talks about what type of traits each character has e.g. magical, mean, kind, curious and all in all it added so much more to the story for us.

Fum and the Magical Zagabog!  Gotta love those acorns!

To continue to tie our study of the lake together we have been reading Abenaki stories out loud and learning more about the native people of our area.  Popasquash has been working with the kids on their knot tying skills, hierarchy on a ship and nautical flags.  I came home from work on Sunday to find they’d spelled out “Hi Mom, We Love You Sugar” from the mast of our boat! And I replied “Whisky-Oscar-Whisky!”

Watercolor postcards ready to send!

Sailor and I read every day and it’s getting easier.  I can’t believe how much I’ve had to relearn in order to teach Sailor how to decipher words.  Curse the dratted English language and all its nonsense!!  Our favorite books so far?  Dr Seuss’ “Up!” and “I’m Not Getting Up Today!”  Which fits in perfectly with our sleepy heads…another added benefit of home schooling is sleeping in ‘til 8am!  8:30am in Dodger’s case ;)

The infamous "workings out book" of Dodger's

Yens and Euros and Dollars and Cents or "Stay in your own lane in the pool"

I realize I’ve referred to our year ahead as a “small and affordable vacation”.  In comparison to what I thought the future would hold as I daydreamed in my twenties this statement is true.  I saw us jet-setting around the world babies in tow, learning foreign languages, driving a rust free car…you know, those “when-I’m-a-real-grown-up” dreams.  A decade later, that didn’t happen.

Old pencils, sharpened and arranged to look like new!

The truth is that home schooling is not so affordable.  I find myself wishing for some of that school tax money back as I fork out for math text books and theater tickets and now that the “official” school year has begun I’m getting emails from all sorts re: classes for home schoolers.  They sound fun and they’d force us out of the house and I’m eager to sign up, but there’s the money question.

A couple of recent articles interviewing home schoolers have sparked my interest in discussing the affordability of home schooling.  The families interviewed are able to pay for their home school kids to attend multiple lessons outside of the home and in one case even pool together with another family to hire outside help to facilitate a home school co-op.  Yep, that’s not me.  Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think all home schoolers necessarily have "money".  If you live in our lovely state and can raise a family on one income you are way ahead of the game.  And I don’t claim that we can do it.

So far I have spent the following on home school…

$88 for 1^st & 5^th grade workbooks, tests and reviews for the entire school year

$120 for tickets for the family to attend 4 matinee performances at our local theater over the school year

$50 general paper supplies and I expect this to increase fast as we start to use up art supplies we already have and purchase new ones.

Of course the big money deficit is what we are missing now that I only work per diem.  

That may or may not seem reasonable depending on your point of view.  And point of view is what it all boils down to.  If you are like me, and I’ll admit I am overly curious, I am interested to know how other people are doing “it”.  I am the type of person would be quite happy to discuss the intricacies of your grocery shopping list and budget.  I am entertained by children who come to our house and naturally want to poke through our fridge.  Of course, who on earth is as interesting as other people?  Not to be immodest but I’m sure folks are wondering, as I have about others, how we plan to pull off home schooling when school provides the care for our kids so we can earn.

Money is that odd concept that we all have very specific views on, views that may seem like madness to the next person.

How are we going to do it?  Well, we’re taking a gamble.  We’re gambling that we can take on some debt and risks now in order to enjoy our youth and our kids, since, let’s face it, this youth and young family thing will end.  And because however far away fleeing the nest seems...it’s getting closer everyday. 

We spend money on time; in other words we lose money by not working so that we can have time with our kids.  Some of the places we save would probably make some squirm…

2^nd hand clothes…I don’t mean Salvation Army-that’s ritzy, they have price tags now!  I’m talking church basements. 

Eat out almost never, that includes coffee at gas stations. 

2^nd hand furniture

No cable

Hats in winter…I mean indoors.

What we spend big bucks on

Our mortgage

Our food and drink

Sailing

Being home with the kids

I had an instructor in nursing school who used to say “stay in your own lane in the pool”, she was referring to fear of bad grades but it works for money too.  It is next to impossible not to, but I try not to compare myself to anyone else.  It’s an uphill battle, especially when it comes to money.  But it just isn’t a linear process, money and feelings about money are too complicated.  Maybe you can pick up some tips from others but that’s about it.  It’s going to be a lean year and I hope we can catch up when it’s done.  I’m thinking a lot of art with found objects….