Rainy October

So... It's been quite a while since I posted here.

I got about as fed up as a person could get with being hit, nearly hit, honked at, sneered at, and screamed at by motorists while biking or walking in Chicago. I love Chicago, but I don't want to be hit by any more cars, so we moved to Madison Wisconsin. Madison is a great place to live: I hope I'm not contributing to ruining it by moving here; it would be the first time I was on the ruing-the-awesome-by-moving-into it side rather than the forced-to-move-out-of-a-place-I-love-by-clueless-and-careless-new-residents-ruining-it side of that equation. Wish me luck there.

Anyway, we signed up for school here because we didn't know anybody, much less a bunch of homeschoolers. School was OK, I think it was a pretty good school as schools go, but it wasn't a good fit for us for a bunch of reasons, mostly related to food, health, and lifestyle. Most of the kids were bussed into the local school, so we still weren't making friends in the neighborhood by going there. Then after less than a month of school, we met a really wonderful group of local homeschoolers, so we quit kindergarten. Now we're doing roughly 2 days a week of playdates, where the kids play together in a public park, and one more day of group outings; so far these have been things like apple picking, watching a parade, attending a theater production with juggling & a visit from the medical helicopter, and going to the zoo. (We missed some of them in the transition period, but hope to do better there now that we're formally withdrawn from public school and officially Homeschooling.) We're also signed up for twice monthly classes at a local nature center, they have some in the middle of the day specifically geared to homeschoolers.

More later, I'll post a recent picture, some links about Homeschooling, and our Homeschool curriculum wishlist.

Science Fiction

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. We're settling in to the new place OK, I'll try to write a little bit about it later.

Anyway, a short note this morning, we are on our way to see the new Star Trek movie, bebe's first real introduction to Star Trek. Pretty exciting. Gave her a shower, sent her upstairs to get dressed. She came down naked, I made fun of her outfit "That skirt's kinda short, I can see your butt a little." had a laugh. I told her to be happy, this is a special occasion for a family like ours, who favors science fiction. Brief bit about grandpa Ken who is an engineer and loves sci-fi, grandpa Del who, although I'm not sure he ever read any sci-fi and didn't study engineering but went ahead and invented a curb machine to make his job easier, and made a lot of curbs and a lot of money with that. Using your intellect to deal with the world rather than looking for rote answers from some book or authority, creativity is the essence of sci-fi, and we are an inventive people. Blah Blah. "so today is special, put on something cute and comfortable to wear today". "Like this?" she says pointing to her birthday suit. Ha! Pretty funny for 5.

urban rangers

So... We had a plan to bike to all the parks in our area code, and eventually to all the parks on the North Side of Chicago. We made it to quite a few; my slow internet connect has so far thwarted my efforts to put up the pictures we took with the park signs. BUT, now we're not in Chicago anymore, and we don't have our bikes yet. I haven't been in Madison long enough yet to figure out how to modify and adapt that plan for our new location. 

I still think it's a great general kind of plan. Never thought to call it Urban Rangering, so here's a link about that. 

Moving

We are moving to Madison Wisconsin in a few days. I am already missing Chicago, but think this is the best thing for the baby. We like having a car-free lifestyle, and it's a necessity financially; we can't afford both a car and me staying home with the baby. 

Albany Park is GREAT for a car free life-style in almost every way - I can shop, get to the doctor, do all kinds of fun recreational stuff with absolutely no need for owning a car. The only way it doesn't work is cultural - there is a certain percent of the population who make it dangerous for us with their (oftentimes deliberate) hostile and incompetent driving. It's sad and ironic that being car free subjects us to the worst excesses of car culture - people who spew excessive toxins with poorly maintained vehicles, honk excessively, drive viciously, but there you have it - we don't want to get run over by ignorant peasants, so we're moving to what we hope is a more bike friendly city. I am crying writing this. 

I love Chicago. It's my home, both ancestrally and the home of my heart. I have dear friends here. I love Albany Park, have lived here a long time, feel at home here. In many ways I DO NOT want to move. But evaluating the last year, I keep coming to the same conclusion - I don't want to be run over by a junk truck, while too many drunken a-hole junk truck drivers seem to be looking for the opportunity to run over a mother and child, speeding around and honking like morons on their very important junk truck business. If gas prices rise to the point they can't afford to do that, or someone wises up and deports them all, I'll be back in a heartbeat. Here's hoping. But for now I've gotta go. 

Thanks for the good wishes, and keep well, everyone. 

worms

This spring we have been interested in anatomy and reproduction, reading about and drawing microbes, worms, ants, spiders, and snakes. Worms, like slugs & snails are hermaphrodites. We picked up a load of them after the rain, and put them back in the grass. The Field Museum has a neat exhibit about small life in the soil, I hope we get a few more chances to go there before the summer crowds. By this time next year I hope we have a worm bin for "vermicomposting" kitchen scraps. 

WOW! We got our XO laptop today, it's super neat!

grow crystals

They don't really grow, what do they do, accrue? We talked about them "knitting up", contrasted with fire, which is a chemical reaction moving in the other direction. 

Simple pre-schooler level crystal project at the Field Museum's website. 

Lots of stirring & mixing.