Live Free Learn Free Blog » 2005 » May <title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/wp-content/themes/thirteen/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS 2.0" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="RSS .92" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/rss/" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Atom 0.3" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/atom/" /> <link rel="pingback" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/xmlrpc.php" /> <style type="text/css"> </style> <link rel='archives' title='August 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/03/' /> <link rel='archives' title='January 2007' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2007/01/' /> <link rel='archives' title='December 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/12/' /> <link rel='archives' title='November 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/11/' /> <link rel='archives' title='October 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/10/' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/09/' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/05/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/03/' /> <link rel='archives' title='February 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/02/' /> <link rel='archives' title='January 2006' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2006/01/' /> <link rel='archives' title='December 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/12/' /> <link rel='archives' title='November 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/11/' /> <link rel='archives' title='October 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/10/' /> <link rel='archives' title='September 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/09/' /> <link rel='archives' title='August 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/08/' /> <link rel='archives' title='July 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/07/' /> <link rel='archives' title='June 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/06/' /> <link rel='archives' title='May 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/05/' /> <link rel='archives' title='April 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/04/' /> <link rel='archives' title='March 2005' href='http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/03/' /> <link rel="EditURI" type="application/rsd+xml" title="RSD" href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/xmlrpc.php?rsd" /> </head> <body> <div id="headwrapper"> <div id="header"> <h1 id="title"><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog">Live Free Learn Free Blog</a></h1> </div> </div> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="content"> <div class="post" id="post-30"> <h2 class="posttitle"><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/05/01/why-i-clean/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to Why I Clean….">Why I Clean….</a></h2> <p class="postdate"> May 1st, 2005 at 12:59 am (<a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/category/unschooling-life/" title="View all posts in Unschooling Life" rel="category tag">Unschooling Life</a>, <a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/category/musings/" title="View all posts in Musings" rel="category tag">Musings</a>) </p> <div class="postentry"> <div />Today, I procrastinated. Yes, I walked away from PageMaker, cursing, and went, instead, into the living room to oil the wood furniture. Mind you, this is something I never do. I dusted, oiled, and polished the tables, the couch (a beautiful wooden futon, actually), the piano, the bookcases - everything. Then, I went outside and washed the siding on the front of the house - scrubbed it, and sprayed it down, and scrubbed it some more. I cleaned the back yard. I cleaned the dining room. I did the dishes. I made a trip to Lowes for some replacement swingset/fort equipment. I called my mother. I cooked. I spot cleaned the carpet.</p> <p>And I still hate PageMaker.</p> <p>I know enough to get by with the program usually, but I don’t know enough to figure out what’s wrong when things don’t go smoothly. This annoys me.</p> <p>Kenzie started the day playing with his friend across the street. She’s sweet and interesting, and she and Kenzie happen to be about the same age. The two of them usually get along fairly well, though they both feel things intensely, so there are the occasional blow ups. Today, however, was worse than usual. Her friend came over to spend the night, and they immediately formed a two-person clique, telling Kenzie they wanted to play alone, running away from him, keeping their distance, whispering secrets, telling him they didn’t want to be near him, yelling at him to “Go away!” He was heartbroken and told this to his friend’s father and the girl’s mother (who was still there visiting). He cried. He rode past them again and again on his bike, wiping tears from his eyes.</p> <p>So, we talked about cliques, about how schools aren’t healthy places for children to be, so they form exclusive groups to make themselves feel like they belong. But to do this, they also have to keep people out. That’s just the way cliques function. It was difficult for him to wrap his brain around the idea. We talked about the difference between people getting together naturally, because they like each other or they have something in common, and people being thrown in together whether they like it or not, having to prove themselves over and over every day. We talked about the ways schools rank kids. We talked about emotional survival.</p> <p>The conversation lasted a long time, and he seemed to understand it as well as an unschooled seven-year-old can. Hopefully, things will be back to normal tomorrow.</p> <p>Kenzie spent the evening eating spaghetti and watching his father etch glass and stones. He’s looking forward to being able to etch something himself the next time they pull out the equipment.</p> <p><img border="0" alt="Geode_fox_pawprint" src="http://livefreelearnfree.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/geode_fox_pawprint.jpg" /></p> <p>One of Terry’s (older) etchings:<br /> a wolf pawprint on a small geode</p> <div /> </div> <p class="postmeta"> <a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/05/01/why-i-clean/#respond" title="Comment on Why I Clean....">Comments</a> </p> </div> <p> <a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/05/"></a> <a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/05/"></a> · <a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/2005/05/">Next entries »</a> </p> </div> <div id="sidebar"> <ul> <li id="meta"> <h2>Meta</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/wp-login.php">Login</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/feed/" title="Syndicate this site using RSS">Entries <abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr></a></li> <li><a href="http://www.livefreelearnfree.com/blog/comments/feed/" title="The latest comments to all posts in RSS">Comments <abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr></a></li> </ul> </li> <li id="search"> <form method="get" id="searchform" action="/blog/index.php"> <p> <input type="text" value="" name="s" id="s" /> <input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" class="submit" value="Search" /> </p> </form> </li> </ul> </div> <div id="footer"> <p> <a href="http://wordpress.org" title="Powered by Wordpress, state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform.">Powered by Wordpress</a> · Design by <a href="http://beccary.com" title="Theme designed by Beccary">Beccary</a> and <a href="http://weblogs.us" title="Theme sponsored by Weblogs.us">Weblogs.us</a> · <a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer" title="This page validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional"><abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</abbr></a> · <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer" title="This page validates as CSS"><abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr></a> </p> </div> </div>  <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> var sc_project=605365; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_partition=4; var sc_security="d224bf47"; </script> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/counter.js"></script><noscript><a href="http://www.statcounter.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://c5.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=605365&java=0&security=d224bf47&invisible=1" alt="free stats" border="0"></a> </noscript>  </body> </html>