There's a give-away on my other blog in honor of my birthday. Check it out and enter for some fun! And if you haven't already, read the posts below, get clicky on some of the banners on the side and leave me a comment saying hi! That's my bloggy birthday wish!

Blog swap

I participated in a post swap today with The Leaky Boob and Authentic Parenting. The journey into Unschooling for our family wasn't one I entered willingly. I resisted homeschooling with everything I had and UnSchooling was even more terrifying. Though we are no longer UnSchooling at the same level or what we'd like, we cherish the year plus that we were able to enjoy the UnSchooling experience and learned a lot from that time that we still utilize in our educational journey today. I hope you take the time to check out the Authentic Parenting blog and become a fan of their Facebook fan page.

Make Over, Make-Me-Over!

I need to win a blog make-over because I need help. Shoot, I need to win a full body make-over (any offers?) but the blog is less intimidating. ;) So I'm hoping to win this from Toddler Awesome.

If you read my blog...

Would you mind clicking that little banner on the side there for Top Mommy Blogs and vote for me? Pretty please? Pretty please with chocolate syrup, whipped cream and a cherry on top? And go check out the site too and discover some other cool blogs.

Susan Boyle's mirror for society, French Elle and Western Body Image

How has this happened? It's Thursday, exactly a week since I blogged last. Bad blogger, bad, bad blogger. Oh well, I refuse to have blogging guilt.

Besides, I know exactly how it happened. I started thinking about something that has been bugging me and I fixated on it because that's what I do. Then there was work, writing, homeschooling, a long birth, a conference/workshops and feeling under-the-weather (oh dear, maybe it's the swine flu! I'm kidding, I'm kidding!). Excuses I know but I am here now, finally deciding to put down into words the issue that was troubling me.

Unless you have been on a deserted island, a self-imposed media fast, or suffering through a power outage of hurricane proportions, I'm sure you have seen the video of Susan Boyle singing for her audition for Britain's Got Talent. She has a beautiful voice. Such a comment coming from me is no small thing, being a classically trained singer myself as well as a vocal instructor I am nothing short of a snob when it comes to voices, well, voices that garner recording contracts and international attention anyway. I do like regular, everyday people kind of voices, the kind that are unaltered by recording software and over zealous production. Well trained voices and raw, happy voices (like the kind heard at birthday celebrations, churches and ball games) are my favorites. In case you are wondering, I don't care for most of the voices considered worth listening to these days. Ms. Susan Boyle's though is really quite lovely, I could listen to her repeatedly. So it was with surprise that I found myself cringing through the video featuring this woman's amazing voice. It wasn't her singing that caused me to squirm but something else and I couldn't put my finger on it. I heard people talk about her, read Facebook reactions to the video, saw and read a few interviews with the new singing sensation. Still, it took me a few days to pinpoint where the problem was.

I have heard many great voices of all different varieties and I look forward to hearing many more in my lifetime. The odd thing to me is that many of them were just as beautiful if not more beautiful that Ms. Boyle's yet they never have received such attention so quickly. Perhaps they haven't been in the right place at the right time or they choose to not pursue their chance at fame on reality TV. Or perhaps there was something else at play. Gradually, after watching interviews that increased my discomfort with Ms. Boyle's situation I began to understand. People were genuinely enjoying her voice, that was not the problem, the problem was that they were shocked when it came from her. There was laughter when Ms. Boyle walked onto that stage and the judges' faces expressed knowing looks of annoyance at what they were certain was to come. Based on Ms. Boyle's appearance and age, she was judged in a matter of seconds as something to be laughed at, dismissed, her entertainment value solely for mocking, or poking fun of if you will. It was determined instantly that her talent was intrinsically tied to what was deemed her unfashionable image. The video of her performance became an overnight internet sensation, garnering more viewings of any video before now not because her voice was that remarkable but because her voice came out of a middle aged, fluffy, frumpy, awkward woman. Susan Boyle quite innocently held up a mirror for all of us to examine ourselves, if we dare to look and can see deeper than our quest to look like the super stars we idolize.

I want to be wrong, I want to believe that the laughter that greeted her when she walked on stage was a coincidence, that her rocketing fame has nothing to do with her appearance, nothing to do with people gawking at her as though she was some kind of freak show. But I don't think I am. Why else would Larry King and others point out that she doesn't look the part? Ask her if she's planning a make-over? Reporters write that she must have recently gone shopping when she was spotted sporting an article of clothing more trendy than she had previously been seen wearing? In fact, one of the judges of the show was reported as saying Ms. Boyle shouldn't get a make-over or change her look because she would then lose some of her "charm." I agree, Ms. Boyle shouldn't change her look but not because she would lose some of her "charm" but because in doing so she would be joining the ranks of so many and end up losing herself. Her voice is not contingent on her body shape or appearance, she's already proven that. Ms. Boyle already refused to buy the lie to "look the part," perhaps now we could follow her lead and refuse to buy the lie that says a person's value, skill, and talent are tied to their hair, make-up, figure and some arbitrary fashion police. I believe that Susan Boyle has a wonderful voice but what truly makes her exceptional is her courage to step out on that stage unapologetic for who she is and I hope that even though she has had a bit of a make-over recently, she will continue to let her voice speak for itself. Maybe it is because I have spent time in the world of opera where waif thin body shapes and airbrushed looks rank far behind the actual voice and talent that this rubs me the wrong way. Or maybe, just maybe, it's the hunch that we have it wrong. Not only should we avoid judging a book by it's cover (I'm not particularly fond of that saying) but perhaps we should stop judging covers as being all a person is truly comprised of. That it is acceptable at all to laugh at and dismiss a person when they walk out on a stage or into a room before you know anything about them, their talent or if they are even there to make you laugh simply because they don't look what we have allowed ourselves to believe is required to be talented, smart, original, or beautiful is by far what is truly ugly in our society. This is an ignorant prejudice that runs deep and we are far too consumed with our own reflections to even see. And I won't even touch the commentary this is on our world's view of women, not here, not now. I'll save that for another day. (Ok, but real quick, ask yourself "what if she had been a man?" Running, running away from this now.)

I appreciated the contrast highlighted in a blog post by Julie Neumann last week on the Women's Rights blog hosted by Change.org comparing the media senastion of Susan Boyle and the French publication of Elle magazine. There are plenty of words here but if you would like to see some of the images from French Elle's edition Stars Sans Fards (Stars without make-up) check it out and read Julie's thoughts on how these two examples challenge our view of body image and hope for not just women, but all of society. Step up to the mirror that Susan has held out to us and inspect your heart, your character and how you determine the value of others.

Everyone's Beautiful- except me.

Deep breath. It's simple really, just write a few sentences about your day, life with kids, homeschooling and whatever is in the crockpot at the moment. Not hard, you can do this.

Yes, I talk to myself. Even to prepare to write a blog post. In fact, I talk to myself all the time though it's never really to myself but to some imaginary host of readers. A host. There are 7 followers of my blog, hardly a host. But I love you guys, even if it doesn't appear that way thanks to my gross neglect of my blog. They don't make it here often but I write post after post in my head through out my day, I'm thinking of you, I promise.

The neglect is over, it ends here. I'm blogging again. Last night I had dinner with an author, Katherine Center, a wonderful woman who nicely kicked me in the rear though I don't think she realized it. Blog, she said, and write. Constantly struggle with the balance but at least struggle. So here I blog. My confession, I want to be a writer, always have but have always dismissed it as something that would never happen because, well, there are millions of people that want to be a writer and last night I learned what I already knew with out numbers to back it up- something like one in 900 submissions to a publisher get published. The number could have been 9,000, I don't exactly remember and in reality it doesn't exactly matter, the odds are not good. Still, I'm going to try. Here's my first attempt, I'm telling the world that I want to be a writer and I'm working on a book. All 7 of you. Plus maybe my mom, and if she can figure out how to comment she might even say hi. Hi mom.

The question is what to blog about. In my mind, my life is boring, really boring. I see beauty in my life but I am not part of it, just the onlooker of beautiful moments that perhaps only I'd appreciate because they are created by the glue and painted covered hands of my offspring. Cooking, cleaning, home schooling, knitting, and occasionally writing, not exactly the stuff of captivating posts and I'm not about to have a specific theme to my blog, say homeschooling or crafting because I am far too unfocused and unorganized to achieve that well. My blog reflects my life, a little bit of everything and profoundly unorganized and the idea of recording that chaos somewhere and holding it up for the world to see (yes, even the 7) is rather intimidating. Sure, I could present something that is nice and polished, like a semi-precious stone cut and smoothed to shine as something of real value but in reality I would know, it's still just a piece of rock you can find on a hiking trip made to look pretty. No, that doesn't interest me, if for no reason other than I stink at lying. I'd be found out. All it would take is for one person that's been to my house to say something and it would be all undone. Sticking with the truth even if it is messy and unglamorous.

Enough about me. Last night my good friend, Monette (currently blog-less, this situation must be remedied) invited me to an event she planned for her club to have dinner with Katherine Center who is *gasp* really a very normal woman and mother. Borrowing Katherine's most recently published book, Everyone's Beautiful, from Monette, I read through it in about 3 days, give or take. I would have read it in less time, an easy read it's free flowing conversational style makes it hard to put down but I had a few distractions that required I feed and teach them at least once in a while. It was everything all the quotes and reviews said it would be and more. Mildly depressing for maybe three quarters of the book for me not because it's a depressing story, on the contrary, it's funny, poignant, real, and engaging, but because in the telling of a young stay-at-home-mother with three children under 4 it was a little too real for me. I squirmed at times in spite of my laughter with the feeling that I could relate with the main character a little too well. This is so much of what made it so I wanted to read it all in one sitting. Uncomfortable though I may be with the idea that I could relate to this character I had to see where the book was going, what was going to happen to her. She starts off the book declaring that she decided to change and I had to know what that change would be and how it would take place. The further I got into the book the more I had to know about this change, if for no other reason than to have hope for myself.
Read this book if you have been a mother of small children, are a mother of small children, want to be a mother of small children, or have a mother. Though it's a book about a mother of small children in reality it's about so much more, a book about feeling stuck and what we do to change it. A story of love, hope, promise, and the humor in life that accompanies us on whatever path we're on if we have the courage to see it. And beauty, a story of beauty. I'm attempting to find that in myself now too.

And that was more than a few sentences. I really need to write a book.