Rain Clouds and Sunbursts

This week has been a bit of a storm. We have weathered health concerns, financial woes, the car turned off on me... in the middle of traffic, all in the same week.
I felt like I was going to cry this afternoon, like everything was coming down on me at once.
Thankfully, I was able to pull myself together, rally, and get on with the program.
I thought this was something that I do on the inside and that no one notices, so I was so touched when we got home from a birthday party tonight and my daughter hugged me and said, "Thank you for taking the time to take us, Mom. I know you were tired and had a hard week. It means a lot to me that you always press on and stay strong and take us to be with friends."
Wow. My fourteen year old daughter is such a sweetheart.
Later, I was tucking everyone in for the night and it hit me how precious that time is - just the few moments before bed when everyone takes the time to hug, to cuddle, to have a few minutes to connect.
I started reading, Charlotte's Web to my nine year old son tonight. I sat in his room and read him a few chapters. He smiled and I smiled and we enjoyed Fern taking care of Wilbur and enjoyed the simple pleasure of a book and a moment to be together and the power of a great story.
After leaving his room, I went to my daughter's. She had a few things to chat about - growing up and the changing friendships with some of her friends as they get to be teenagers. I sat on her bed and braided her long, beautiful hair into two braids - one on each side. I thought about how mother's have been doing this forever into the past - the moments before bed that we take to connect. I thought about the difficult week and that here, on Friday night, my family is safe and together. We had food to eat, we had each other. Maybe the troubles of the week aren't so insurmountable. I thought about the beauty of the lake tonight. The birthday party was out by Lake Murray. The sun was beginning to dip down and the colors of sunset were spreading across the sky as we were packing up. The sun rays were distinct and lovely. I came home to see that another party attendee had photographed the sky and posted it. I thought about our shared experience - that without any words - someone else had seen the sky with the same appreciation of that moment.
I thought about all of this and I felt content. I hope my children remember that the sun comes out again - even if it rains a long time.

Medieval Feast at The Woodland School Cooperative

Our monthly homeschool cooperative met for a medieval feast. This was probably the high point of the fall semester. We ate chicken legs like barbarians, jousted with pool noodles, and generally had an amazing time. Here is a group shot of some of the merry-makers. I can't say enough about this fabulous group of friends.

Making Fairy Houses

Giving Thanks

It has been quite awhile since I have taken the time to add an entry here. These days, my facebook page is quick, easy, and to the point and I have sadly neglected my blog. This past year has been a time of upheavel and challenges with health again. These peg people date back to November, when I spent a long weekend with all of the cousins in North Carolina. From age 2 to age 13, they are eight of the sweetest childen ever (I am not biased at all). We had a great time making crafts, playing outside, and enjoying the special time with cousins only. This is the special time known as, "Camp Nanapapa". I was the special guest program director this year. My son was having some health issues and I needed to attend if he was going to. Nana and Papa gather the cousins for several days of memory making once or twice a year. This year Auntie Laura got to attend as well. Looking back to Thanksgiving - which was a brief weekend of fun in the midst of a difficult time, I am thankful. I really felt the blessing of having a wonderful support system this past year. I am going to spend some time posting snapshots of the past months. I don't want to forget the special times with family and friends that were so encouraging and brought so much joy and thankfulness to my life.

Meal Planning, Homeschooling, and Allergen Free Recipes

If there is one hill I find I hard to scale in my homeschooling journey, it is meal time. I have a child with celiac disease and severe allergies to wheat, oats, peanuts, tree nuts, and seeds. I have another child who is gluten intolerant and my husband has celiac disease and is allergic to dairy. Yikes! What is a Mom to do? It takes time and budgeting to make sure safe meals appear on the table. We can't stop by the local fast food drive-thru or order pizza delivered - even on days when I would love to have an easy option. I remind myself that the children will probably be much healthier over all without eating out much and then I dive into planning our meals. Right now I have a three week system for each season. This means I make three weeks of meal plans for summer, fall, winter, and spring. Then we rotate through the three weeks of menu's for the summer months and then switch to the fall menu's and so on. This seems to work pretty well and I keep an open mind for special circumstances. For instance, my son's birthday is this coming week. I printed out a blank summer menu plan and revised this week to include his favorite snacks and his birthday meal picks on his special day. You can also plug in festivals and special events this way. I highly suggest coming up with a three (or four) week meal plan and then rotating them. A little work at the beginning can save a lot of sitting around wondering what to fix for dinner. I also shop sales by picking up doubles or triple of items we use a lot and saving them for the right week.  I am working on putting my grocery lists in the file with my menu's, so I can just print them out. Right now I am still just looking at the meal plan and jotting down what I need for the week. This isn't a brilliant and complicated meal planning idea, but it is a little something in my tool box of organizing my year. Bon Appetit! 

The Good Ole' Summertime

Here is the children's seasonal corner for summer. We have done some cleaning out and organizing and now we are putting things in order for the new school year. Some lessons have resumed to keep skills fresh, but "school proper" is set to officially start in August. Today Addie and I went over all of her classes and planned out her course of study. We both love school supplies and organizing. Things are moving quickly to a new school year, but some summer fun still remains. We celebrate Whit's birthday this month! Plans are coming together for a day of fun and frolic summer style. We are going to the summer movies tomorrow with friends. The theater has movies for a dollar on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the summer. Whit still has camp to look forward to at the end of the month. Plenty of summer remains, but we take time to get things ready for a great new year of homeschool.

The Rhythm of Planning Your Homeschool Year

There is an old saying that says if you aim at nothing, you will certainly hit it. I used to think that sounded boring, that if you always planned out what you would do and what you were aiming for, you might miss some essence of becoming that comes from being able to live in the moment and take a new path at any given time.

Now, I recognize that aiming for something means you can amble towards a destination, but still stop and smell the flowers (or even take a new path) on the way. One of the big obstacles to living life intentionally is thinking that things will just fall into place and that you will have the energy and inertia to make your intentions into a reality. I have found, that for me, too much of daily life comes at me and before you know it, I am living in a hurried state and have wandered into the busy-ness of things and have left my true intentions behind me.

Thus the need for planning. I am living a rhythm of planning right now. I marked off the last two weeks of June and the entire month of July as my planning season. This doesn't mean that I sit around planning all day, instead it means that I have slowed the calendar down for my family. We are not accepting as many play dates and activities right now. The children are still down for summer camp for a week in July, but we are careful to keep our interactions down to one or two things a week for the rest of the time.

I use this time to read and to think and to make notes. For the last several weeks, I have read ebooks on Waldorf education, listened to audio files and videos of lectures and conferences, and have surfed the internet for inspirational blogs and photos of the main lessons, daily rhythm, and age and stages that this year holds for me. I have also been doing some reading on the temperaments and how they relate to adult/child interactions. I haven't crammed the information, but have bitten off bite size pieces. I read and then make a few notes. Then I sleep on it. The next day, I may read my notes again and think about how to incorporate this into my life this year.
After a couple of weeks of mulching like this, I took out my calendar and wrote in all of the solid dates for the fall. I wrote in appointments, meetings, festivals and celebrations, etc.

Next, I have started looking up the main lesson topics in my library catalog and making a list of resources for each topic. I have also taken note of resources I already own and purchased a few things. 

Now I am ready to move to the next stage. I plan to spend the next couple of weeks planning out my main lessons and putting it all into my planner. I will still allow myself room to roam a bit, but I have found that in order to make my house and school run smoothly and keep the intentionality to our days, we need some planning and we need rhythm.