a new year

A new school year is upon us. Paulie, Philip, and Finn are back in their respective high, middle, and elementary schools in 10th, 7th, and 3rd grades this year. School is now underway, and we are settling into familiar routines. Except Elizabeth. She's feeling her way through a new routine this year as she homeschools for 9th grade.

The feedback when you decide to homeschool a highschooler is interesting. "Really?! Why?!" "What about math?" "Won't she miss the socialization?" Ok, maybe those responses aren't so different as when you announce that you intend to homeschool at other ages, but the underlying question that many seem to hedge is, "aren't you afraid of spending THAT much time with your teen?" The basic answer to all of those questions is this: I not only love her because she's my daughter; I like her too. She's witty, curious, and engaging. She's had a great educational foundation and enjoys learning. She's a motivated kid who likes to check things off lists, which means no nagging from me. She already has deep connections to many friends. She will volunteer, take art classes, take violin lessons, and find other ways to "socialize" if we find that lacking over the year. As for math...thank goodness for Sal Khan.

Since the ever-burning question from other homeschooling parents is generally curriculum related, I'll post a list of our resources below:

English: I'm making my own literature curriculum supplementing with resources online. We started with Tom Sawyer. Brave Writer will stand in the gap for writing.

Math II: Khan Academy (following the basic Common Core Integrated Math II)

US History: A History of US, US History Maps

Earth Science: CK12 Earth Science for High School, supplementing with YouTube, online activities, and projects
PE: 4-6 week units as Elizabeth chooses, right now she's doing yoga and stretches
Art: assignments that tie into her other classes as well as classes through our local art school

A few other things worth noting, I'm trying to keep a week or two ahead on planning, which will allow me to adjust as needed. Teachers Pay Teachers has fantastic resources, some free, for nearly every subject. I've already downloaded many of their resources to tie into other curricula we're using. YouTube is your friend. There are videos on EVERYTHING out there! Netflix too. I'm sure as we continue I'll find things that work better and not as well. I'll try to keep you posted as we go along!

remembering

Yesterday, in the middle of yet another icy day where the roads were too treacherous to have school, as I wandered up the stairs to read aloud to the children while they folded the ever-present mountain of laundry, I heard Paulie say, "Hey, I remember this book. Are we going to read this again?"

"Actually, I'm reading it to Finn right now. We're about 3 chapters into it."

He smiles fondly, "I really liked that book." Then he places the book back onto the rail at the top of the stairs, the often storage place of books in the process of being read, and skips down the hall to the mountain of laundry.

Such a simple exchange, yet it caught my attention, and I reflected on it several times over the course of the afternoon. These teens, with their intermittent snarky attitudes and desire for greater independence, are still the small children that used to sit by my side after I wearily put a baby to bed and took a few minutes to read to them before the end of another long day. They probably won't remember many of the scores of books we read together during the paths of their childhoods, but the glint of fond memory that occasionally rises to the surface makes me pause in gratitude for the spark that might have been lit during those formative, if exhausting, years.

today

What did you do today?

What are you going to do today?

Those are probably two of the hardest questions for me to answer. When I worked a full-time job, they weren't always easy to answer, especially if the person asking knew nothing about database administrator, but in my head there was a concrete answer, even if it was difficult to articulate.

Now that I've been a stay-at-home mom for 3 years (and I truly can't believe it's been that long), my head immediately answers those questions with a bit of a snarky thought along the lines of, "What do you want to hear about first? The litany of messes I cleaned up today, or the baking I accomplished?"

When there are small children at home all day, the monotony can be similar, but at least there is the accomplishment of keeping a small child alive and well for another day. When your kids spend all day at school, a stay-at-home mom can really start to question her value. Or at least I have.

Ultimately, I don't know that I have anything profound to say on this topic. I just wanted to share for anyone who might feel alone in this situation. Now that my kids are mostly tweens/teens, the value of being a stay-at-home mom can feel even less than when you have small children who need your help with homework or want to share about their day. I do think that teens need a parent around who is interested and cares whether they would ever admit this or not.

One thought that I will share is that you really do have to find joy in the doing. I don't make granola bars for an after-school snack hoping that someone will be particularly appreciative for that gesture. In fact, I'm just as likely to hear, "Granola bars AGAIN." The value of the gesture is not defined by the gratitude of the recipient, or lack thereof. The same notion holds true of staying home in service of your family. My value in working here at home, whether I'm cleaning the bathroom, canning spaghetti sauce for a future dinner, or planting yet more succulent shoots into empty yogurt cups, is not defined by whether someone outwardly appreciates that fact. My value is in the doing.

making do

Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. Ah...the mantra of every man, woman, and child of the Great Depression. Not as much of a mantra for the Gen X, Gen Y, or Millenials, although you do hear a similar sentiment in the "going green" movement. I grew up with a bit of this mentality, and it has definitely carried over into my adult life. Our cloth napkins are a perfect example. They've been a part of our family for longer than Finn; many of them are stained and worn, yet they remain in constant circulation. (Although we do keep a few nicer ones tucked away for guests and holidays.)

Last year, I wrote briefly about the little farmstead we put an offer on and how that fell apart. I didn't wallow much in this space, or even outside of this space, because I'm not much of a wallower. I think that my heart wallowed more than I was willing to admit though. I found myself looking at houses with land in our area for hours and hours through the months of April and May of last year. Finally I admitted to myself that this didn't seem to be the path we were supposed to follow right now because the right place had not manifested itself since the first little farmstead that captured our hearts.

And so, for months and months, little things started languishing in the house where we currently live. Nothing huge. I just could seem to think about updating the paint in the dining room here when we might be moving somewhere else. Wouldn't that be a waste of time and energy?

Somewhere around September of last fall, I finally had a stern conversation with myself. The kids were still asking occasionally if we were going to move. I only had vague answers for them. Other folks who knew about our plans would ask. I would feel somewhat rankled to have to keep answering those questions. A decision needed to be made. Not a decision on which house to buy. A decision to make do. We felt like this was the perfect place to raise our family back we had only 3 small children. Our family has grown, and those children are now teens. If it doesn't feel like a perfect fit right now, then what can we do to make it a better fit?

This new mentality was part of the driving force in the crazy decision to redo each of the kids' bedrooms for Christmas. (You can see the results here, here, and here.) And since Christmas, I've been slowing working my way through other spaces that have been less than perfect, making them fit our needs better. The laundry room and Paulie's closet have been reorganized, and we just bought the necessary parts to get our jetted tub back in working condition. In the next month we have projects slated to make new curtains and paint the dining room, to build a shelf to reorganize and create more storage for the canning jars, to clear some of the brush from our back fence that is shading the garden.

Through each of these projects and through the conversations as a family about our plans to stay here, I feel myself growing more content, more objective, more peaceful in our life here at this house. Maybe one day those plans will change, maybe they won't. But not one more minute will be wasted in expectation. Making do is much more soothing for the soul, and that's more important than the perfect farmstead anyway.

lessons in laundry

(Today's photos have nothing to do with the topic of the post. They are just a reflection of the bleak winter cold with little precipitation that we seem to attract down here in NC while the rest of the country has a bounty of snow.)

Yesterday while we were at breakfast and the kids had a "snow day", which just means that there was ice on the roads somewhere in the county, I informed them that following breakfast we'd be doing a few chores, including folding some laundry. No one batted so much as an eyelash as this is rather typical of any weekend, holiday, or summer break day when no one has school. After a pause for few bites of eggs, Paulie remarked, "I wonder how different my life would be if I viewed folding laundry as a privilege."

After his siblings looked at him like he'd grown a third head, I marveled at the wisdom that sometimes emerges at the most unlikely time. "That's a good thought." I commended him. "We should see if we could come up with 10 things that would be different or ways to be somehow grateful for the privilege of doing laundry." Queue siblings groaning and muttering, "thanks, Paulie!"

Once they got into the spirit of the task, they did come up with 10 things.

10 Reasons We're Privileged to Do Laundry

1. If we didn’t fold laundry, mom would have to do it all and wouldn’t be able to make us such good food. (I love that this was their number 1 reason!)

2. If we didn’t fold laundry, we wouldn’t know how to do it when we’re grown.

3. If we didn’t fold laundry, we would just have wads of clothes everywhere.

4. If we didn’t have any clothes to fold, we would be cold.

5. We might be embarrassed if we had wrinkly clothes.

6. We wouldn’t be able to find a specific piece of clothing when we needed it.

7. We could have something wrong with our arms, and we wouldn’t be able to fold clothes.

8. If we didn’t fold laundry, we might not learn to be responsible.

9. If we didn’t know how to fold laundry, our one-day roommates or spouses might not appreciate the mess.

10. We fold laundry together and get to spend time together. (my favorite reason!)

I was quite proud of a few of their reasons, although it was quite funny when, in the silence following the list, Philip blurted out, "but I still don't like to fold laundry." Maybe the task wasn't a 100% success, but if a little seed of finding gratitude and enjoyment during chores was planted, then 100% isn't necessary.

the feast of Saint Martin

Martinmas is probably my favorite of the Waldorf festivals and the one I most miss celebrating in a formal way this year. Let me back up briefly. We've been involved in a local festival group for the last few years and have thoroughly enjoyed every moment spent with these amazing families. For varied reasons, it hasn't worked out this year to celebrate together. 

As a family, we are now forced to come together and define what each of these celebrations mean to us individually. My oldest kids are starting to outgrow some of these rituals just a bit, and although I know that if we made lanterns again or if I gave them some of our old lanterns and said that we were going to walk with them this evening, they would have done so zealously. We are entering a tremendously busy season, of school performances, holidays, family coming to town, and it seemed a bit more authentic to gather together around our dinner table and keep our Martinmas remembrance closer within us this time.

With the Thanksgiving holiday just around the corner and the example of Saint Martin's simple gift of a half-cloak, we enjoyed a simple dinner of bread with a few spreads and some simple raw veggies and fruits. I think we can even better enjoy the vast array of Thanksgiving choices after we've expressed our thankfulness for the simplicity of bread and vegetables that are provided for us daily.

Following our simple meal around candlelight, we lit lanterns from several of our past Martinmas celebrations. As we basked in the glow of the light of Martinmas's past, we enjoyed a simple treat of hot chocolate while we read the story of Saint Martin.

And although we miss our traditional lantern walk, this simplified celebration feels authentic to where we are right now.

crushed

My excessive absence from this space over the last 4 weeks has not been by design.  Just life happening, I suppose.  Initially, I lacked time to write because of a wonderful surprise that dropped into our laps.  We stumbled upon a farmhouse, in foreclosure, that just screamed our names.  For about 3 weeks, we spruced, purged, and readied our current house, while putting an offer in and dreaming about life in this sweet little farmhouse.

Ultimately, the bank's agent dragged her feet getting the paperwork to us to sign to get the house under contract, another person made an offer, and we ended up losing out on this wonderful deal and lovely little homestead.  The entire situation was a bit crushing and more than a little difficult to write about before now.

Not being one to drag my feet in misery, I've already been working on some new projects, taking my mind off of the whole ordeal.  Hopefully I'll have some more posts up soon.  Ones with a bit less heaviness. :)

Onward and upward to a new week!

happenings

Spring is springing now, or at least it's trying to.  For every week of warm, sunny temps, we get a week that follows with chilly, rainy, gloomy weather. And I have been absent from this space for just shy of two weeks.  The longest absence since I started this little blog almost 5 years ago.  

It's been a crazy last few weeks and I simply cannot focus on writing about mundane little cutesy things my kids are doing, or the pretties I'm knitting, or even how the daffodils are shining their faces toward the sun when larger, more important, things are bubbling just under the surface.  My personality must be wired wrong for fluff blogging, or something.

I kept thinking that the longer I waited I might be able to share more in this space and so I waited, and waited, and waited.  Did I mention yet that I'm one of the LEAST patient people on earth? Ask my husband, or parents, or anyone that's known me very long.  I'm a Type-A, get-it-done type.

And still I sit here waiting.  Or there hasn't been much sitting actually.  There's been lots of busy-ness to fill the waiting-time.  Knitting little owls for Easter baskets.

Rearranging furniture (apparently leaving a nook for Elizabeth to create with some couch cushions). Spring cleaning, purging of clothes and unnecessary items.

Yard work. Pickling asparagus.  The mundane things that keep life normal during abnormal times.

Oh, and a hand-blown glass chicken. (At the end of every good story there's a hand-blown glass chicken, right?) My Easter gift from the hubs.

Spring is springing.  Whether I'm distracted or not, chirps are filling the air, blossoms are wafting through the morning rays, and little bits of green are springing forth.  Patience might not be my forte, but I'm trying to at least breathe through the waiting and pay a bit more attention to the world around me.

a jar full of kindness

Maybe the February funk hit us hard this year, or maybe it's the fact we have a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old that sometimes seem to be competing for the title of "most dour attitude", or maybe a valley of life has come around that finds us needing to be reminded of our appreciation for one another. Whatever the reason, I find that there is less kindness in this house than there should be,  less kindness than we need to live in a state of harmony.  Every attempt on my part to amiably point out the unkindness or just lack of benevolent attitude toward one another has been either rebuffed or has lasted around 5 minutes.

And so the kindness jar was born.  Each of these marbles represents an act of kindness or a refrain from unkindness (when it was possibly warranted).  We've only been using the kindness jar for a few days, but I can already see (and hear!) fewer snippy words, more generous behavior, and a pleasanter house in general.

Each of the kids has their own kindness jar to fill, from the marbles given to them out of my kindness jar, and when a jar is full, the owner can pick out a (free!) activity for the entire family to enjoy. And the ENTIRE family has to enjoy said activity. 

As a bonus, each of the kids can memorize the kindness quote that is attached to his or her kindness jar to earn one of the larger "shooter" marbles. It's not always easy helping kids to see that, much like these marbles, little acts and words of kindness scatter out into the world upon impact, making the world a brighter, more colorful, much more pleasant place. But I'm confident that, one marble at a time, we can increase the kindness inside our household, and hopefully practicing kindness will become habitual...a reflex of kindness.

 

Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness.  ~ Mother Teresa

12

{1 week}

{16 months, at the park}

{18 months}

{2.5 years}

{with her brothers, age 5}

{preschool graduation, age 5}

{competing in a school poetry slam, age 8}

{at the beach, age 9}

{starting 6th grade, age 11}

She's 12 now, this girl of mine.  It happened yesterday with all of the pomp and splendor we could manage on a school day with a mom sporting a fever and feeling generally yucky.  I did take some time, as I always do, on this day to reflect on my mothering journey.  There's something about Elizabeth's birthday in particular, even though she's not the oldest child in our blended family, that makes me ponder. Ponder parenthood, ponder my own adulthood, ponder the journey our lives have taken.  She's been with me for more of my adulthood than anyone, or anything, else in my life.  Longer than my husband, longer than our house, longer than any job. These pictures, these stages represent not only her milestones but mine as well. I couldn't ask for anyone better to join me in this journey.

She's an amazing kid, and I can't wait to see what the next 12 years of her life holds.

resolutions

New Year's Day is a time for making resolutions. Resolutions to improve life, get healthier, choose happiness.  I've never been one to really make resolutions.  I tend to make changes when and how I want to do them not at a particular time to follow societal expectations. I do tend to reflect on my life and the direction I see it heading at this particular time of year though.  This time 2 years ago I was on the cusp of a big leap. I left the business world and decided to stay home with my littles full time. This time last year, I was homeschooling Finn with the expectation that Elizabeth would be homeschooling this year for middle school. (You can read more about why that didn't happen here.) And now, there are no huge changes on the horizon, no expectations that this year will be much different than the last.

Although I have no grand resolutions to share right now, one thought has been on my mind over the last few weeks. The thought that I'd like to bring more poetry into our, particularly the children's, lives.  I mentioned this to Paul before Christmas, and he gifted me with a fabulous children's poetry book for Christmas: A Journey Through Time in Verse and Rhyme. So maybe that qualifies as a bit of a resolution after all.

I also think it might be nice to share a bit of verse every now and then that the kids or I find particularly enjoyable or moving.  Here is the current favorite of the house (that I had to read 3 times over lunch today):

I Knew A Gnome

Trevor Smith Westgarth

I knew a gnome

Who had his home

Right in the middle of an oak tree.

He wore a hat

And breeches that

Were all of the colour of the oak tree.

Two squirrels lived above his head,

Some rabbits burrowed beneath his bed,

"I keep them warm and safe," he said,

"All in the middle of my oak tree."

A wise old owl

She found a hole

High in the trunk of the oak tree.

And come what may

She slept all day

High in the trunk of the oak tree.

But when at last she took her flight,

Hooting in the pale moonlight,

The gnome rode on her back all night,

Swooping all around about his oak tree.

some thoughts and a gingerbread house

It's not easy to launch back into another week of blogging about mundane goings-on when life has come to a crashing halt for so many grieving families. Many online newspapers, magazines and even other bloggers have shared some profound thoughts, and I have nothing to add that hasn't already been said. I'll simply share a few reflections.

This past weekend, on the heels of another national tragedy, one of my oldest and dearest friends brought her family up to visit mine.  The timing couldn't have been better. We spoke very little of what was happening in Connecticut.  We didn't need to.

Our children, thrilled to be in each others company again, were buzzing around, chasing each other, clambering into each others laps and onto each others backs.  They made movies together, curled up together in bed reading, ran races in the backyard, and built the little gingerbread house you see in these pictures.

They saw not one headline, not one news story, not one frightening alert.

They had the time, energy, and gift to simply be children.

As my heart breaks for the many families who were robbed of this precious gift during this season of love, joy, and peace, I am holding a space in my heart daily, even hourly, to slow down, hug my children, enjoy the holidays.

Fortunately, my kids won't remember this particular Christmas season as being different from any other year. But I hope I do.

I hope I can continue from this year forward to be more patient, more loving, more joyful, more present.  For what my children need are not more gifts under the tree, even hand-knit, lovingly-made ones, they need a family encircling them with security, peace, and love.