tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71906108102642960972026-03-03T05:47:48.798-06:00Iowa to France and Back AgainA Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.comBlogger1207125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-61587287966841456542023-12-25T09:41:00.001-06:002023-12-25T09:41:33.043-06:00

  Cher/Dear Ami(e)/Friend, It is Christmas morning, le matin de Noël in France, and all is quiet and doux. The title to "Silent Night" in French is "Douce Nuit" which is a little bit confounding, isn't it? But the literal translation to "soft" or "sweet" is apt for this kind of morning, with the quiet of sleeping family all around. Doux/douce (feminine) also means sweet, mellow,

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-34644087982496286552023-09-27T14:54:00.002-05:002023-09-27T14:54:32.500-05:00

 Dah-dum-dum-dum (here comes the bride)...wrong song for France. It was in fact, "We were in Paris, to get away from your parents," by the Chainsmokers  that dredged forth the memory of my first Parisian wedding, maybe it was my first French wedding ever. In my case, the desire would have been to flee Paris to get away from parents, aunts, uncles, cousins...but the people were not the

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-4864422735493959012023-05-06T19:13:00.009-05:002023-09-27T14:39:33.994-05:00

  It has been a week of work and drives. No, it has been two weeks of working and driving. No wonder I am feeling fresh as a May daffodil. (In Iowa, this equals drooping and done.) Despite the fatigue, I appreciate the beautiful detail in historical courthouses (Polk County above and to the right, Benton County below). There was a trial out of town on Monday, which can bring out the

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-44527481826856320222023-02-17T13:10:00.006-06:002023-04-07T07:08:43.385-05:00

Sometimes you care and sometimes you just don't. When knitters cast on a new knitting project, we exist in a dream zone, a lull in time, the magic of the softness of the yarn, the brilliance of the design, the idea of how beautiful this will someday be. At this stage, you will be ever so careful of the baby project who needs all your attention and protection from the elements, from thieves, from

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-73278175991711293722023-02-11T17:05:00.000-06:002023-02-11T17:05:23.440-06:00

Because, even though you have counted yourself lucky not to have ever done this up thus far in your life, miraculously, (what are our chances, ever?)......dropping your phone-cum-flashlight in the toilet as you reach across to dry your clean (not for long) hands on the hand towel that for some reason has always hung on the wall right across the way, is just dumb. Dumber still when it is 3 am and

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-37616031963204477822023-02-05T08:02:00.004-06:002023-02-05T10:41:23.392-06:00

What began as a "sure, it might be great to share what I know with local students," soon became, "wait, what have I gotten myself into and how am I ever going to figure it all out in time for spring semester?" While I have been painstakingly working through foreign concepts like class calendars, grading rubrics, and a thing called Moodle (created for "education management"), I have been planning

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-37535906535180830302022-10-04T14:11:00.005-05:002023-02-05T07:41:47.986-06:00

This is from a post begun months ago. I could not quite conceive of how to begin to suddenly write about the profession of interpreting on my family blog, out of the bleu. Still family life evolves, and this part is proof of that fact. We have children and they are small for about two nano-seconds. It is much like our fleeting existence overall, floating out here on this planet in this vastness

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-17859075127017371792022-10-02T22:19:00.002-05:002023-05-29T16:29:52.838-05:00

Landlocked no more! I am on a beach, sand under my feet, with the water within reach, salt droplets spraying my face once again. It is unworldly how much is evoked by mention of the ocean; peace, beauty, lulling, raging, tempestuous, murderous, whatever name one gives it. I do not believe I gave it any name growing up, except in picture books or when my grandmother returned from visiting my

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"We" includes a team; the one with the condition or injury, the ones suffering because of the injury (affected and affected's family), the health care professionals: primary doctor, alternative medicine doctor, chiropractor, physical therapist, surgeon, physician's assistant, and all of the other doctors and orthopedic specialists I consulted in the past. It's really a little embarrassing to

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-86381617459016370422022-09-30T15:18:00.009-05:002023-05-29T16:30:28.737-05:00

Now offering a new series on where life as a French-speaker and an interpreter might take you. One of my friends joked it could be named "Call the Interpreter" as one of my beloved t.v. series is entitled, just with "Midwife" instead. Only with less blood and gore and screaming, except during labor and childbirth, of which there was quite a lot for the first nine years.And truthfully, it all

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-5339914026250086842022-09-29T11:35:00.002-05:002023-02-05T06:35:23.296-06:00

This is, in fact, Day Seven Post-op of having a joint replaced in the left wrist, or an arthoplasty CMC . ***If you cannot abide reading medical descriptions, skip to the next paragraph and cute dog pics. The trapezium bone was removed, replaced by a tendon graft and the bones hitched back together with a tiny tightwire. I always dreamed I'd do acrobatics and tightwire stunts. Fancy this being

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-56284588656850049812022-08-06T08:41:00.004-05:002022-08-08T16:35:15.305-05:00

There is life after lunch. Right after we’ve had a nice nap to recover from lunch. Which is after the hour of coffee-drinking in the shade of the trees in the garden. The nap, I mean, not lunch. I know, there is a lot to keep track of. We go visiting or are visited. Marie-France, my French mama and I do much of the visiting. It is a day by day affair. The telephone is picked up around 3:30, a

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-24867390364465654882022-07-23T05:17:00.005-05:002022-08-06T08:44:35.532-05:00

That has been the sum of my days until 4 pm every day this week. What did I accomplish today? I had lunch. Here is what it takes to make possible a meal here. A bergerie in the forest of Les LandesThe old houseI sleep too late; the charger for my phone is too far from the bed, so I leave it unplugged. Phone goes dead, most likely from failed attempts to join an inexplicably complicated wifi,

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-84464748986782048012022-06-26T19:06:00.000-05:002022-06-26T19:06:13.509-05:00

 A conservative funeral service and a cutting-edge technology conference dull the pain of a terrible choice.-The choice to remove choice.And encourage us to choose to use your voice to point to a better choice.Text through telepathy.Grieve with hope.A doctor respecting the last wishes of his patient to choose to die makes a life-changing and hope-giving vow to change the world.Now, past

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-11236090729286026612022-05-26T17:50:00.007-05:002022-06-21T08:32:53.664-05:00

You too have probably heard, and I may also have thought that part of the difficulty in raising children is that each of them is a different person; entirely and distinctly themselves. Today I saw this iris and remembered that it is exactly this "where did you come from" aspect of discovering the child who is briefly entrusted into our care that is the true job of parenting. I did not

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-62729597830352601722022-05-25T18:30:00.001-05:002022-05-25T18:30:00.187-05:00

I think about languages and culture all the time, so this thought may sound as though it came out of the blue, but it has been brewing for years. Despite our best intentions, our vision of reality is not always aligned with what is happening in our children's world. Sometimes it is a question of different cultures, from one country to another or (universally), from one generation to the next.

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-34350745819711146282022-05-02T06:58:00.003-05:002022-05-25T18:07:38.203-05:00

 I Want the World to Wake Up Bilingual...or at Least North AmericaImagine…if we could understand each other twice as well, if we were always able to see double; both sides to every event, if we could hear and see and speak to each other on more than one level. What if we all dreamed in two languages? I know you have thought about it; “I wish I spoke French: I would be able to tell the Über

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-29890894739754991422022-04-24T09:51:00.003-05:002022-04-24T14:48:14.255-05:00

A post left to thaw out in the busy days since it was written. Here we were, just a few short weeks ago. Has this become a travel blog? It is just two of the kids, husband and little me, off to Michigan for a long weekend in lieu of spring break in southern climes. It is surprisingly beautiful, the yet partially frozen Lake Michigan, even with a temperature of minus 50,000 degrees if you take

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In which the happy, adventuresome itinerant interpreter comes face to face with a near-ditch experience, seeks shelter in the first option available, and is rescued, once again, by a community resource, this time, The Maquoketa Public Library. The First Place AvailableAs I left homeCourthouse in Dallas County, Iowa, a "normal day in the life" Well, Susana, oh, what can I say? When I left,

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 My elbow whispers reasons so many change to sunbirdsand fly away for the winter.My legs back, head and heart shoutthat I am born of the Midwestlover of snowand clear blue skies of winter.Here I shall thrive.

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-60426939914894486542022-02-20T14:14:00.010-06:002022-09-25T16:28:38.564-05:00

"Travel" was not a verb but a necessity. The work was not where my home was, thus, I drove to where the work was to be found, a courthouse an hour away, an office two hours away. Always, always, the goal has been to get back home as soon as I possibly could. This year the number of hours spent driving intensified and the amount of hours my children were at home diminished. I became, in a word,

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-73830196252700046522022-02-01T11:42:00.003-06:002022-02-01T11:42:30.344-06:00

 Surround Yourself with French: Listening SuggestionsBring the sound of French into your life, in as many ways as you can! Ideas, resources, and all our favorite audiobooks and podcasts, listed below. The audiobooks are available on Audible in French. The podcasts are clickable and free. Le Club des Cinq, Enid Blyton (young sleuths solving mysteries out on their own in the 1950’s-60

A Homeschool Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07601636901131690015noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7190610810264296097.post-33551643363933738652022-01-27T16:02:00.002-06:002022-01-27T16:02:36.322-06:00

Yes, it is still really, freakin' freezing cold here in Iowa, but I am posting this entry all about foreign languages from August to warm you up.  It is from a second blog of mine on a platform that is closing. 04 August, 2021 What is the advantage that a small child learning two languages will miss, but becomes apparent very quickly later?

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Land of French, land of snow, what else do you not know about Canada and in particular, that bit of it that is Quebec? As a child growing up in France, one learns of the Great Separation that almost was, the New France Quebec could have become, that there are bears and cabins in the woods, and great, peaceful expanses of wilderness. I know almost nothing of the very European metropolis that is

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The food alone in France has its own glossary of words, never mind music, festivals and nature. What is left for you to discover in this great world? You have within you, possibilities yet unexplored. The languages you do not speak have a power to express parts of you in ways you have yet to discover. Look at French, for example and the expression

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