Mr. T is just beginning to type his writing on his own. Warning: some of what follows may sound like heresy to traditional educators. Recently a reader of this blog sent an email asking for advice. She’s a homeschooling mom, and she wrote after spending time with other homeschooling friends, and hearing how they teach [...]

Me, squinting and looking sheepish. I did not write much in 2011. That realization sort of stuns me. I didn’t recognize it until the year began to dwindle and I glanced back. I spent a lot of time last year working behind the scenes of my writing, without actually writing. I futzed under the hood, [...]

Happy new year! I have a post brewing in my brain, but we are off to the beach today, and I can’t get it together. Still, I wanted to get that Christmas tree off of the top of my blog. We de-Christmased the house yesterday; I wanted to do the same here. I leave you [...]

I’ve had half a post written for over a week now. But somehow, cookie-baking, wreath-making, sweater-knitting, gnocchi-shaping, veggie-pickling and Christmas movie-watching have kept that post from getting finished. I thought about simply posting photos of all those acts–a dispatch from Elf Land–but if you’ve seen one artsy, macro peppermint bark shot, you’ve seen enough. Instead, [...]

Dearest H, I know, I know, you told me not to put this on my blog. I understand that you’re nineteen and a college student and all, and being written about on your mom’s little blog could be pretty embarrassing. But really, buddy, who’s gonna know? I don’t use your real name, so anyone googling [...]

This year Mr. T and I are delving into California history. With a few other families, we’re visiting a different historical site each month. We’ve already had a few wonderful experiences, which I’ve neglected to share here.  One of these days I’ll catch up. Meanwhile, this week we went on an overnight living history trip [...]