Alaskan Mom's Life

Go ahead, attempt the climb

Everything we do involves risk, but how do we evaluate risk? People say entrepreneurship is risky, but isn’t being an employee risky? Activities such as mountain climbing and sky diving are considered riskier than camping by a fire. A better way to evaluate risk, however, is based on our potential and our values. Much of these thoughts come from a very interesting article I just read from The Center for Social Leadership (http://www.thesocialleader.com).

Do you value comfort and security, or do you value growth, adventure and hard decision-making? Risk is the exposure to potential loss or injury. Do we value losing out on fulfilling our potential – our mission?

One risk I strive to avoid in my life is regret in my old age. When people look back on their life they most often regret what they never tried – much more so than trying and failing. So in making decisions today, I often think how I would rather try and fail than to not try at all.

Thoughts to ponder.

~Alaskan Mom

“The most important factor in determining what will happen in our world is what you decide to let happen within you.” ~Marianne Williamson

“The One Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune“. This was a proverb I’d not heard before. I read it in a book by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. entitled Cultural Literacy.

Later I watched John Stossel being interviewed, along with  Mimi Roth at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BtC8I0TlD4. One point Mimi made is that “As long as we have Medicare, Medicaid, group risk health insurance…[they] have the right to …say look, if you don’t eat properly, I don’t want to pay the health insurance for you. …we’re all paying the price. If you ask other people to pay the price, then you’re gonna get their opinion on your food. … Adults, if they would pay for their own consequences, should be left alone. But they don’t…”

What a clear choice. If you want less government regulation and intrusion in your life, then you need to pay your own bills. When government pays, it then has the right to dictate. “There is no such thing as a free lunch“.

What areas of your life are you handing control to others, like the government? To whom have you given permission to dictate to you? For how much did you sell your sovereignty?

Put in this context, many of us would have to admit we’ve sold our sovereignty for a pittance.

“Freedom isn’t free“

Son cleaning snow off car

It’s so nice now that the kids are old enough to help shovel. And clean the cars.

Daughter shoveling snow

You see, we have a very long driveway. And, we shovel. By hand. The old-fashioned way.

Daughter building muscle shoveling snow

Although the shovels are newer. Check out the curve in the handle. Ergonomics.

husband shoveling snow down driveway

And here’s a push shovel. These are nice. You can push a lot of snow at a time, and push it right up the bank, rather than lifting the heavy load onto the top of the snow bank.

Anyway, my husband used to do almost all the shoveling.

Don’t get me wrong. I had the best of intentions. But by the time I FINALLY made it out there, he would be done, or it would be time to start dinner.

Never failed.

Now I send the kids out to help and I’m guilt free!

This time of year as the snow deepens, more moose are out; you see them everywhere nearly every time you leave the house. Or even while you’re still in your house.

Cow moose resting in snow

This momma moose was just relaxing, minding her own business while her calf browsed nearby, until we showed up. Relaxation time over.  Sigh.  A mother’s work is never done. Gotta keep an eye on strangers and dangers.

Cow moose standing, waiting for calf

Well, guess it’s time to mosey.  Come on, son. (I’m assuming it’s a son…can’t tell for sure myself, but it just seems to me…) Come on now, son, Momma’s waiting. Time to get a move on. I’m waiting… And, I’ve got my eye on you, too, don’t think for a second I don’t…

Mother and son moose ready to mosey

You finally ready now? We’ll  browse in another yard, where the neighbors aren’t so nosey, taking pictures constantly, and where we can eat in peace.

I forget how huge these animals are, when I usually see them from a distance. It’s always impressive up close. Keep in mind they’re standing in about 1 to 1 1/2 feet of snow. I’ve always thought they look kind of prehistoric with their disproportionate long legs. Those long legs come in quite handy in Alaska, though, where they walk through snow, browse through muskegs (swampy areas), stand in shallow lakes and cross rivers.

I just read an incredible book on the above topic entitled “Public Education and Indoctrination”.  It knocked my socks off and changed my thinking on some things, but let me back up a bit.

You know, I figured I’d introduce homeschooling on this blog gradually, beginning with background so you’d get to know more about me and our life and other philosophies of living so when I got to some more ‘radical’ philosophies of homeschooling I would have laid a groundwork and my readers would be prepared and (hopefully) not think I’m a complete kook. However, this book has sparked such thought and another educational shift for me that I need to just dive in now!

I am a homeschooling mom to two children, a 13-year old girl and an 11-year old boy and yes, they have been homeschooled from the start.  Like many homeschoolers, especially starting out, we did ‘school’ at home. After all, that was the only model of education I, or anyone else I knew, had ever been exposed. Some years were better than others, some subjects went more smoothly than others, but there were challenges as well.  At the annual homeschool curriculum fair one year I heard Andrew Pudewa speak. That was the beginning of my education about education. At his recommendation, I read “The Underground History of American Education” by John Taylor Gatto, followed by “A Thomas Jefferson Education” by Oliver DeMille, and was transformed. My entire view of education underwent a paradigm shift. I went from doing ‘school’ at home to enabling my children to learn. There is a major difference, but that is for another post.

The problems with government education are not new. Nearly everyone agrees that the public school system needs help. This book makes the case that the problem with our education system is the government. Tax-based funding and compulsory attendance are the root of the problems with our schools. It is all about force. And just like government has no business establishing tax-supported churches and requiring attendance, they have no business establishing tax-supported schools and requiring attendance. Like I said, this is quite a radical concept, at least it was for me to wrap my mind around. Right now you are thinking, as I was, but what about….?  What about a whole host of things. The book does a good job answering a whole bunch of  “but what abouts?” – and I’ll let you read it to get those answers, but the bottom line is sovereignty. Whoever is responsible is the one who pays. Whoever pays is the one who makes the rules.

Thinking about this truth, I also see how it applies to so many other issues (health care?). In any area of life, if you want the control, you must take the responsibility. Part of the responsibility is paying for it yourself. We teach our children that if they want to make all the rules for their lives, they need to be solely responsible for themselves, which mostly involves paying their own way. Even if they were to earn the money to purchase and maintain a car, if the parents still pay for their upkeep, they can rightfully demand demonstrations of responsibility in order for the young person to enjoy the use of the car.

You can find the book “Public Education and Indoctrination” at http://fee.org/library/?search=public+education+and+indoctrination. If that doesn’t work, go to   http://fee.org. Go to Library, then Print, then search for the title. It’s free and worth reading all 199 pages. Then let me know what you think!

For a paradigm shift on the whole concept of education I first read “The Underground History of American Education”. This tome is not easy reading. It’s also quite repetitive, which does help drive home the point. If you don’t need quite all the history, “A Thomas Jefferson Education” provides a good summary and then goes from there.

I absolutely love this article.  ~Alaskan Mom

You are in the perfect place at the right time, and you were given your talents and your life experience for a reason.

Of this, I am positive. And you need to be positive about it too.

Do you recall the devastating tsunami in Sri Lanka at the end of 2004? There was a Swedish woman on the beach that day who became known as “the angel on the hill.”

She noticed the first part of the tsunami – the warning. She observed that the tide went out really quickly and was revealing the seabed. It so happened that years before, she had been working as a journalist and had done a broadcast in Hawaii about the impact of tsunamis.

At that moment, she was one of the few people that recognized and understood what was happening. She was able to warn many people to get off the beach immediately. Who knows how many lives she saved just by that action?

After the two waves subsided, people were in shock, and many badly injured. They assembled for safety on this hill, where this same Swedish woman tended to many injuries. It turned out that she had completed two years of a medical degree a few years earlier.

Though she wasn’t a qualified doctor, that two years of training had given her just enough knowledge to save many lives.
And, here’s what I want you to take away from this true story.
She had been a journalist and that hadn’t worked out. She had gone to medical school and that hadn’t worked out.

And quite possibly, up until that day in her life, she may have had well-meaning friends and relatives and colleagues saying to her, “You’re in your 30s now. When are you going to get your act together?”

She had obviously tried a few different careers that hadn’t played out in the way she probably expected them to. But, from another perspective, she had the perfect training to save lives that day.

So, stop being so hard on yourself. Stop lamenting the things of your past or thinking they were a waste of time, or that you’re a failure for not following through on them. So what if you’ve lost interest in a promising hobby you might have had as a child. It’s no big deal if that musical instrument fell by the wayside when you got older.
Don’t beat yourself up over it.  Stop looking at these things as though you are a quitter or that you lack commitment.

How about looking at them from a different perspective? How about seeing everything that you’ve done in your life, and every single thing that has happened to you up until now, as the perfect training for adding the most value to your life today?

What greater value could that Swedish woman in Sri Lanka have had than to save the lives that she did?

You are in a position to add value, too. Don’t use your past as an excuse or justification for not moving forward. You need to look at your past in a different way. You have the perfect training to get started on what you want to do in your present. Your past experiences are all signposts leading to the next step, the next place you need to go.

You have a brilliant foundation to build upon right now.  So Step UP! , take action and move forward to where you truly want to be.

Bernadette Doyle publishes her weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, then get your free tips now at www.clientmagnets.com

Spiderman Ready to Ski

With his spiderman mask, my son is ready to ski and heads out the door ahead of us, which is a good thing, since he’s the slowest skier of us all.

Daughter Ready to Ski

My 13-year old daughter, who is almost as tall as her mother at 5’8″, now wears all my ski gear and I have to make do with the second-rate stuff. But here she is, ready to go! Her and I were the next ones out the door. We don’t wait for the man of the family with the camera, because he’s the one who can really ski, so he’ll catch up after he helps us all out the door!

Mom ready to ski

The temperature is a balmy 25 F in this part of Alaska today, so I’m wearing sweats, 2 pairs of socks (so the boots fit better), a sweatshirt, a vest, a scarf, gloves and a headband (that’s why my hair’s so flat).

Before moving to Alaska, I never believed you could be outside in sub-freezing temperatures without a coat! And get hot!  But cross-country skiing works up a lot of body heat.

So we ski across the lake to a small hill to practice downhill on cross-country skis; this  takes some practice.

Mom forges the way

We skied across a lake. I grew up in central Washington state. We had snow every year, but our lakes didn’t freeze. Skiing, walking, snowmachining or – gasp – driving – across a lake was quite a nerve-wracking experience for me at first. My husband assures me there’s at least two feet of ice on the lake and that that’s plenty.

I’ve even driven the ice road.  On Big Lake.  It’s plowed and even has direction signs. And you’re driving across a very big lake. For miles. So cool.

Miss Long Legs wipes out

After building confidence on the gentler slope, the kids decide to follow Mom down the steeper slope.

Spiderman wipes out

Well, this isn’t going quite so good. I made it down the first time! I even made it down the second time! Ha! And they’ve been downhill skiing lots more times than me.

Well, the 3rd time was not the charm.

Mom wipes out

ice pack for hot face

I’m even caught in the alders.

Now explain this to me.  Long legs comes in from our skiing excursion and her face is so hot, she instructs her brother to bring her an ice pack, which she then proceeds to rub over her hot cheeks to cool down.  Those are pink cheeks, I must admit, but…  only an Alaskan kid, I tell you.  The look on her face says she thought it was weird that her mom would take a picture of her doing this.  But, you see, she was born and raised in Alaska, and nothing here is weird to her. Except her mom, maybe. But I was not born and raised here. And lots of things are weird.  I knew you’d understand.

The aroma of freshly baked bread filling the house, particularly on a cold winter day, just makes you feel like a good wife and momma. One of the best excuses I find for getting away from the computer is to go to the kitchen. This day I decided to make a project with the kids, because especially my son, seemed to need a project. So pretzels it was.The kids struggled to get the dough in skinny strands to twist into pretzels; it kept springing back, so we ended up with some huge pretzels!

large homemade pretzel shapes

Notice the creativity in shaping the pretzels, in addition to their large size.

homemade hamburger buns

Next was hamburger buns. I found a recipe on www.heavenlyhomemakers.com and decided to give it a try. They took a long time, but boy were they good. Made with 100% whole wheat, they were light and fluffy and not crumbly.  The odd-shaped one was using the last of the dough.  I think it gives character to be odd-shaped.  I also used her recipe for sloppy joes and that was dinner.  Success!

sloppy joes with homemade buns

Chickens go Sledding

So, what do you do for entertainment?  Yesterday it warmed up to about 35 degrees F and the chickens ventured from inside their cozy  boxes and perched atop. They don’t walk down the ramp onto the ground because they don’t like the snow. Does it make their feet cold? Anyway, my daughter and her friend decided to take some chickens sledding. What a hoot…er…cackle!