Things

Joined the gym today, and trying to wrap my mind around getting up at 5am to meet friend at 5:30 three days a week..it will be good though, and Im pretty sure it wont kill me.

In an effort to rid chemicals being used on my body I have abandoned body lotion in favor of using sesame oil. I added a blend of essential oils that I really like, to make the oil slightly scented. This also makes my husband happy...he likes perfume, but I hate perfume...too many make me feel sick, however essential oils typically dont...so I can smell nice and not want to puke.

I was trying to bring to mind wise words my mom may have taught me over the years. The ONLY thing I could remember was "Men like to eat at the same restaurant, but they don't always like the same thing on the menu" Um...thanks, mom.

staying busy

I have entered the rank of mom with kids who have a million activities. I have tried to keep our outside commitments reasonable..one or two each term...but I have discovered that I really enjoy being busy with a lot going on. So now our week holds:
Mondays-Fencing for 9yo and Cub Scouts
Tuesdays-choir
Wednesdays-gym class
Thursdays-Lego League or a field trip with a friend
Fridays-trying to keep one day free to stay at home
Saturdays-soccer for the 7yo.
My daughter still wants to do a ballet class so that will go in there too. What i am finding is that when I have something scheduled outside of the house, it is much easier for me to schedule or establish a routine for our days. I do not do well with lots of big empty spaces of time.

Also starting up this coming monday, I will be meeting another mom at a gym at 5:30 am three mornings each week. If I don't do it first thing, exercise will continue to be overlooked, and if I have an appointment to meet someone and know they will make the sacrifice needed to get there at 5:30, I surely will myself.

This morning we met up with a home school group for a field trip at a working farm that is also an ecological center and nature preserve. It was mainly about maple sugaring..and we all had a great time. The trails through the sugar bush were icy, and there were cliffs, but the kids are like little mountain goats..unlike the adults. :-) This place also has workshops about everything I have meant to do since moving to my little farm...so I think I might begin going to those...they also have family farm chores where the whole family can volunteer and work together..looking into that too. In the summer they offer summer day camp with all sorts of activities for eco-conscious kids..I think we will do that as well. Can you tell I really like this place?

Bird

I took this the other day with my iphone of all things..then did a bit of editing work on it to make it purty.
Suprises of all surprises...I am learning to love winter again. I loved it before...when I was a child..and when I lived in WY. As an adult I think I have been looking at it as more of an imposition rather than taking time to appreciate it. Winter this year has held a lot of snow...and I have fallen in love with it all over again. The paradigm shift happened the other day while I was tracking animals with my 7yo-the moment was magical and my eyes were opened again to the mystery and revealing that winter holds. Without snow we wouldn't know that deer come up to our front porch and try to nibble on our bushes... that a red fox sneaks around the side of our barn...or that for some strange reason a deer ran in a perfect circle in our yard. Deer games maybe?

This reawakening of my love for winter has led me to also question when I lost the adventurous part of me. My husband says it went away when I was first pregnant, and I think he was right. That was the first time I ever had to consider protecting another persons life other than my own.

Motherhood has really taken that part out of me....but...now that the kids are older, I think it is coming back. I have seen it appear every so often throughout the past several years...when I take the kids hiking, catch snakes, insects, or critters to show them. So it isn't completely lost...maybe it had to go away for awhile? I am thinking that this summer I will introduce the kids to camping...although, I need to find an area that is not a popular campground...when I camp I like to be with who I am with and not with strangers.

Had I known....

That I would really really really REALLY not like writing a critical analysis of two texts that share a common theme...I would have chosen short stories....not two novels. This....sucks. My rough draft was beyond awful....and trying to create a final out of it...is really not fun.

If it were possible to strangle an essay....I so would be.

One Month Anniversary

of my mother's death.

So weird to think that one day and a month ago I was holding her, she was still alive, and I was telling her I love her and that we will all be ok. She told me she loved me too and would miss me.

I really miss her.

I have tried to call her out of reflex a few times this past month...to tell her I was awarded the scholarship that will pay for half of my tuition....to tell her I got the boys their cub scout things and to whine about how much they cost...that I got in touch with my cousin, and tried to call my aunt who I havent seen in 12 years. Every time I picked up the phone and was hit with the reality that I cant call...she is dead.

Sometimes I see her in my dreams. A few times they have been so disturbingly real...we are at a family party and she is still sick..but it is always her being sick when she seemed to be getting better. I wake up each time and have to adjust to the shock that it was just a dream. Other dreams have a weird mosaic "Where's Waldo" quality...and I have to go through a million faces till I find hers. The dreams are the worst. Some are just nightmarish and I refuse to bring those to memory.

Focus

For some really strange reason...when I am sick, my mind gets extra productive and I can think well. Although, my husband would say it is because I have been gorging myself on books and research...letting it sit and then it comes out in good ways...maybe he is right.

Yesterday was a horrible day.

Today my brain is working and I did what I always do when Im in a rough spot and I need to regain my focus....I sat down and wrote through what I need to do to feel successful on any given day...here is what I came up with...

-healthy meals prepared and eaten (Im pretty good with this now..but sometimes it is easy to slack and then I feel like I have failed my health and my children's health"
-schoolwork done thoroughly on a daily basis (we have gotten off track and are behind our yearly goals because this past year has not been so steady...the kids magically are where they would have been anyway...)
- a consistently clean house...(clutter drives me crazy and kicks my brain into being overwhelmed)
- my schoolwork done
- one activity for my self growth.

Solutions....
- get the house back to baseline clean...a place where I feel comfortable and it is easy to put back together...honestly most of the mess is because my kids have toys ALL over the living room.

- get the kids schooling planned out and put in the planner so every day is a no-brainer...I open book...we do the scheduled work...amazing.

-plan out and breakdown my schoolwork into small daily pieces...easy enough to do then.

- break down the books I am reading on Classical Education, grieving, and health into daily bits to read so that Im not trying to read all of them in one day.

- make a 2 week revolving meal plan and shopping list. We are entering Lent so every meal is vegan with a few involving shellfish. Having a list will eliminate much brain power.

So for the rest of this week, the kids will be reading some books to get caught up, I will be doing my schoolwork...we will work together to get the house back to baseline, Im going to find a housecleaner to do the deep cleaning once a week for us, I will get my schoolwork and their schoolwork broken down to daily bits, and get that menu and shopping list made up.
This will be good. :-)

A year of hair

Taking this route because otherwise my blog entry will be about me being overwhelmed, or trying to function with massive brain fog, and how today was the roughest day so far. In order to avoid all of that...here are photos of my hair from the past year or so.
I loved that red...I was never able to re-create it though

Learning differences

During school time today I realized just HOW different my 7yo boy and 9yo boy are with the way they learn. While we did math and I was explaining new concepts, my 7yo grabbed a sheet of paper and started taking notes. He has never been told about taking notes, just started to do it. He concentrated on his work and finished quickly without error on each topic.

The 9yo kept forgetting things like the order of the days of the week, but told me from memory the myth of Isis and Osiris as well as how the position of Pharoah became established in Egypt. His knowledge covered way more than the text I was reading to them did. He also is easily distracted and will begin to do things like sing or drum or make weird noises. I couldn't help but think of a story about my husband from when he was in 4th grade. He was so bored in class and felt ignored so he stood up and began to crow like a rooster.

Today my 9yo and 5 yo start choir...my 7yo told me he does not want to sing, so he isn't doing it. Tomorrow they have gym class in the morning and then we are going to a large sports complex to meet up with a homeschool group we are a part of so the kids can play...well..sports. Im anticipating thoroughly tired out kids afterward.