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I started that article on prioroties in homeschooling, but I didn't have time to finish it, and the inspiration left me. I know what I want to say but I'm having trouble getting it down. Today I meant to post a link to an article by Carmon about the nursing mother's cotton brain syndrome, but I can't find her archives.
Speaking of that cotton-brain thing, net friend Jane, wife of pastor Bret McAtee, told me that it's a seratonin depletion caused by a lack of sufficient fatty acids. I've been taking cod liver oil and trying to use only cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, as well as limiting the wrong kind of fats. It seems to be helping.
Milk fat is good, too, if it's unpasteurized*, but that's next to impossible to find. There's an interesting website out there called Real Milk about the nutritional benefits of unpasteurized milk.
Along these lines, I just discovered that Wal-Mart sells organic milk. No antibiotics, pesticides, or added hormones. It's about six times the cost of the regular stuff, but I figure it's worth it. There is some speculation that the early puberty seen in girls these days is at least in part attributable to the hormones given to cows to make them produce huge quantities of milk. My 10-year-old daughter is starting to show signs that she'll be Maturing in a year or two! Scary thought!
Speaking of maturing daughters, my oldest is fourteen now, and I'm facing the fact that from now on I have to keep really good records of her school work in case she ever wants to go to college. Some days she says she never wants to leave home, and others she talks about what she'll be studying in college. Elijah Company has a forum where I found this bit of good advice:
I did have my dc keep a list of books read during highschool. We just used a simple spiral notebook, tabbed it off with various categories (classics, historical fiction, sci-fi, biography, etc) and they would jot down the title and author in the appropriate section. This was helpful to me when it came time to put together a transcript as I could give credit for American history or science or whatever depending upon what books they had read.
Katherine reads so much, she should have a notebook full in just a few months. She's great at all the Language Arts. I just need to get her math up to speed. We've decided that our kids can graduate from homeschool when they are able to keep a budget and balance a checkbook. LOL
Well, so much for writer's block. I guess the stream of consciousness style works better for me than trying to get my thoughts organized!
*Edited for Cotton-brained content. Milk fat is good if the cattle actually get to eat grass all day long, not just grain. Pasteurized milk is good for other things, though.
