I can hear the drip, drip, drip of the rain outside the partly-opened window. Like a slowly falling bed sheet, a thick cloud has enveloped our valley. The three little, white votives on the kitchen table have all burned out. There’s just one red candle flickering now, but I can’t see it because a basket is blocking it from view. The granola is resting in the now-cool oven. Its sweet oaty smells have long since dissipated in the gloomy air.

I have a bad case of the munchies, but it doesn’t have to do with hunger. Sloggy days like this, I crave the jolt of tongue fireworks. When I woke up at 5:30 (thanks to the over-sized five-year-old who mysteriously materialized in our bed and then thrashed about like a blasted octopus), I could sense it would be one of those days where I’d be tempted to overeat, so I fixed myself a filling breakfast of jacked up oatmeal with chopped apples and walnuts. Happily, it worked, but I’m still feeling dull and mushy.

There is a little flowered vase filled with lavender sitting on my kitchen table. The flowers (with two pink roses that have since given up the ghost) were gifted to me by one of the donut party attenders. I keep staring at it, hoping its delicate prettiness will give me a lift.

Mr. Handsome says I’m suffering from the donut party letdown. He might be right.

Then again, he might be wrong.

What’s the fix for days like these, huh? Hot chocolate? (Maybe.) A jog in the rain? (Blech.) A good cry? (Too much work.) A thick novel? (Already have two going.) Plan another party? (Perhaps.)

I’ve been thinking about another party, actually. The idea has been banging around in my head for quite some time. But it makes me a little nervous. Because I’d be inviting a bunch of people I’ve never met. See, um, oh geez, how do I say this? I’d be inviting, um, well, I’d be inviting …. you.

Wouldn’t it be fun (and quaint and odd—my husband’s adjective of choice—and charming) to have a pie party? You do like pie, right? If I had a pie party, would you come? You’d have to bring a pie, that’s all. And then we’d sit around and chatter about all sorts of things and sample lots of pie and go home stuffed. It’d be rip-roaring fun.

But I worry. I worry that this blog is too small to do something this bold. Julie did it, but she’s a big-time blogger; I’m just a wee little thing. And I’d be mighty sad if no one showed up. In fact, I might be so sad I’d quit blogging all together. Because if no one comes to my pie party, then clearly, no one is reading my wee little blog, right?

So, maybe not? Oh dear, I don’t know! I love pie and I love my readers and I love blogging, but, but …. maybe it’s assuming too much? (Psst, this is where you’re supposed to jump in and pat my back and croon, “Of course I’d come, lovie! I make this kick-butt lemon meringue…”)

Working my way out of the quagmire,
a pie-loving me

This same time, years previous: deprivation, keeping my hands in the toilet, pumpkin-sausage cream sauce

I’m having an epiphany. It’s about homeschooling.

You know how everyone always responds with the same line when they hear that you homeschool your kids? Oh, you homeschool? Wow, I could never do that!

Maybe it gets said to you, or maybe you’ve said it to other people. (Or maybe you just think it.) It’s okay if you do. Really, it is. We all get twinges of I could never do that when other people do things differently from us. (Or maybe it’s just a polite way of saying, You’re crazy! That’s always a good possibility.)

In any case, it’s been dawning on me that maybe people say I could never do that because they think homeschooling parents talk to their kids like school teachers talk to their students—patiently, clearly, kindly, and in complete sentences. (If you’re a homeschooling parent and you talk to your child that way, good for you. And you may go now.)

This weekend, I had a conversation about homeschooling. These homeschooling conversations pop up occasionally, and they almost always catch me off-guard. I usually botch them something fierce, because in my efforts to downplay the uniqueness of the homeschooling situation, I end up making it sound like some half-assed affair. Which, if you came to my house, you might think it is, but I promise you, it’s a half-assed affair I’ve put a lot of thought into!

Best I can figure, I do this downplaying thing because I’m super-sensitive to the undercurrent of comparison feelings that lap at the edges of any conversation between mamas who have made different lifestyle choices. No matter how respectfully and carefully and graciously the speakers speak (and listen), it’s like there’s an evil undertow just waiting to suck both struggling mamas down into the cold wet and kill them. (Oh, the drama!) So when I feel that I might be threatening someone just because I homeschool my kids, I get tense, and my tongue tangles.

However, this time around the questioner was a grandmother so we were not in parallel situations, thus greatly reducing the threat element. Plus, she was sincerely interested. So when she asked me what our schedule was like, I told her straight up—no embellishing, and no sweeping it under the rug, either.

And then she gave the little I don’t think I could’ve done that response, and the little epiphany I’ve been puzzling over popped into my noggin and I decided to try it out on her.

“You know, I think lots of people think homeschooling is beyond them because they’d have to act like a real teacher. All professional and mannerly, or something. But really, teaching your kids to do math is not much different from getting them to clean their rooms.”

She raised her eyebrows at me.

“It’s true! I yell, I threaten, I do all the stuff that teachers aren’t allowed to do. You ought-a see me give a reading lesson, oh boy!”

I stood up straighter, jabbed my finger at an imaginary child, and bellowed, “This is ridiculous! I am NOT in the mood to waste my time while you bounce around in your chair like a freakin’ kangaroo. SIT BACK DOWN RIGHT NOW OR I’LL PUT YOU ON TIMEOUT.”

(Finger jab-jab-jab)

“No, that is NOT an fff. You KNOW it is not an fff. I don’t want to HEAR you make that sound again, do you understand?”

(Foot stomp)

“CONCENTRATE! Look at the PAGE, not my face! THE WORDS ARE NOT ON MY FACE!”

“So see,” I said, bringing my voice back to normal levels. “It doesn’t take any special skills to teach your kids. Just look at me.”

My friend wiped the tears from her eyes and took a couple deep, steadying breaths. “Yes,” she gasped. “I can see that.”

Please note: I am not suggesting that kids learn best when they are yelled at. (In fact, the opposite is true, or so I’ve been told.) I mostly try to not yell, and I succeed about 70 percent of the time. But I am an emoter, and when I get frustrated, everyone knows it.

My point is, I act the same whether I’m supervising a math lesson or checking a just-cleaned bathroom, correcting table manners or giving a piano lesson (my knitting needles poised to stab, I mean, knit), overseeing a laundry-folding party or drilling the multiplication tables.

And when you look at homeschooling thataway, well, anyone can do that. (Now wanting to, well, that’s an altogether different matter.)

This same time, years previous: apple cake, Italian cream cake, The Stash of 2008

That donut party thing we do (almost) every fall? It happened again, oh yes, it did!

I fried donuts for three-and-a-half hours straight, only leaving my post twice—once to run to the bathroom and once to back up a few paces to take a picture.

We had the yard cleaned up, the dishes washed and put away, and the kitchen floor scrubbed before nine o’clock that night. I got my shower, made myself a peanut butter apple, and then laid down, flat on my back, on the sofa.

And then I shut my eyes. The sensation was intoxicating. I was spinning and levitating at the same time.

So I sat up and ate my apple. And drank a couple glasses of water. And then I stumbled up the stairs to bed and dreamed hard (about autumn and Aspergers, no joke) for eight hours. After which I woke up with a headache and lots of laundry to do.

But I didn’t mind. The sun was shining and there were potted plants on my porch and I had nothing else to do. Plus, there was a happy we-made-hundreds-of-donuts-and-fed-them-all-to-our-friends feeling pirouetting through my veins.

This same time, years previous: pepperoni rolls, how to have a donut party: part one, part two, part three, sweet onion corn bake, pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting