Why I don't Like Chester and the Big Bad Bully

I'm all about children's books that promote kindness and tolerance for everyone and, on the first several readings, I really liked Chester and the Big Bad Bully.  As time went on, though, I began to resent that book and the terrible lesson it taught my child.

Now, anyone who has ever read the book is probably wondering at this point what in the world I am talking about.  This whole series of books about Chester the Raccoon are promoted in schools for their value lessons, so how can I say it taught my child something wrong?  You might be picking up your child's copy right now and looking through the book to find anything amoral in it.  You could do this and you wouldn't find a thing.

That's because the terrible lesson this book taught my child was not amoral or unkind...it was the opposite: a saccharine-sweet, totally unrealistically optimistic lesson that will inevitably lead to pain and misery...

"If you are nice to a bad person, it will make them good"

A Reluctant Homeschooler: Four Reasons I Want to be Regulated

Our library subscribes to a fairly popular homeschooling magazine that has regular features about the legal issues that are part and parcel of educating your child at home.  A common theme I see in the editorials on this topic is the idea that we homeschoolers should do everything in our power, including the language we use to describe what we do, to avoid any legal regulations at all.  States like mine, where I have a minimum of record-keeping requirements and virtually no oversight to make sure I've fulfilled even those obligations, are a dream environment for the more libertarian-minded homeschool community.

Personally, I disagree. I want to be regulated.  Now, don't get me wrong, I certainly don't want the type of over-regulation typical of most of the bureaucracy in this country, but I would actually appreciate a bare minimum of oversight.  Why? Well, here you go:

Meditation, Yoga, & the Distracted Child: Sa Ta Na Ma Meditation

A while back, the J-Rex's Occupational Therapist began working with her on a finger isolation technique that involved touching your thumb to each fingertip in turn.  When the J-Rex told me about the exercise, I was immediately reminded of a meditation listed in her yoga book:

A Reluctant Homeschooler: How it all Began

Homeschooling the J-Rex was never something I had planned on doing.  I was educated in the public school system and that is what I had planned for my daughter:

The Cascade Effect of Self-Improvement

For a long time , I was pretty down.  I was seeing my lifestyle fall apart around me, watching from the sidelines as I kept losing and losing...family members and friends, jobs, possessions, confidence...  

I comforted myself with cigarettes, sleep, and generally attempting to hide from myself and life in general.  

Then, I quit smoking.  To fill the time and distract myself from the cravings, I began taking on new challenges. I tried all sorts of things, from a daily gratitude practice, to clearing out my to-do list, to cultivating an active lifestyle and beginning to exercise regularly.

Wobbly Wednesday

Nystagmus

Today is the first-ever International Nystagmus Awareness Day! I am incredibly glad that this condition is receiving some attention, as it is thanks to a doctor knowing about nystagmus that we were able to find out about the J-Rex's eye conditions as early as we did. You see, when the J-Rex was four months old, her pediatrician noticed the movement of her eyes and suggested we see a pediatric opthamologist. After that first specialist visit, the rest is history - a history blessed with us having been able to take advantage of all kinds of early intervention resources and education that we might not have had access to, had our doctor not been aware of nystagmus.

So, in honor of the first Nystagmus Awareness Day, I'm going to throw some awareness your way with a brief FAQ about nystagmus and our family's experience with it:

Vision and the Education of a J-Rex, Part 1

Recently, I talked about the importance of access to good literature in multiple formats for the visually impaired and explained that I'm invested in this issue because of the J-Rex.  As a way of facing some issues I loathe to face, I want to talk a little bit more about her condition and where we are at in terms of her learning and the physical difficulties she is beginning to face.

Generations of Geeks, A Reflection

I am a second-generation geek, raised on a steady diet of comic books, Dr. Who, and Star Trek.  While my parents were playing Zork, I was working my way through it's kid-friendly equivalent, The Never-ending Story, and still remember the hours I put into translating my east and west text commands into a workable map to reference as I moved further into the game. I was the only girl in the comic shop, starting with the Archie universe and graduating to superheroes with Perez's re-vamp of Wonder Woman.  I was an equal-opportunity fan-girl, obsessed with both Marvel and DC, and a collector's nightmare because I would read those books until they started to fall apart. I attended Dr. Who fan club meetings and Trek conventions before I even knew more about them than Daleks were evil and Wil Wheaton was dreamy.

Mid-thirties Existentialism

Entering into my thirty-fifth year, I was undergoing a transformation and seeing the emergence of a creative surge I had long awaited. I felt a lightness of being and a freedom of spirit I had forgotten I was capable of. For the first time in years, I was beginning to see a future vision of where and who I want to be again, as well as the path to get there. I began to feel like I was walking on air. I felt ready to face my fears, my challenges. I felt good - very good - maybe too good...

Fall Garden

We nearly missed our window, with frost expected for the coming weekend, but an attempt has been made on my first ever fall garden of cool-weather crops:

Radish

Lettuce, Swiss Chard, and Spinach

Carrots

Beets

These seeds were planted three weeks ago under the assumption that, like last year, our Fall would be fairly warm.  As it goes in my part of the world, though, I should have known that mild Winters are always followed by early frosts and colder temps the next time around.  So, we shall see how these tender sprouts will handle this year's premature chill. If anything, this will be an interesting experiment and a lesson to start the Fall crops in August or early September instead of waiting until October rolls around!

Meditation, Yoga, & the Distracted Child: Slowing the Juggernaut

Yoga and meditation are a bit of a tradition in my family, with my mother leading me through guided meditations starting from around fourth grade and my aunt inspiring me to take up the practice of yoga sometime in early middle school.  Seeing the extreme levels of hyperactivity and distraction that the J-Rex apparently came pre-programmed with and knowing how well the practices of both yoga and meditation have served and still do serve me in my own life, I began teaching her these twin arts at an even earlier age than I was taught myself:

We began with a Yoga for Kids VCR tape (yes, they do still exist) when the J-Rex was five.  She liked the movements, but her visual impairment made it difficult for her to fully see and understand the instructions being given.  We weren't homeschooling yet and our lifestyle was much busier, so yoga became an occasional distraction, but not a discipline that had any impact on the J-Rex's life.

Last year, though, my mother-in-law bought the J-Rex a book, Fly Like a Butterfly, and a yoga mat after seeing the enthusiasm with which the J-Rex would imitate her grandmother's stretches in the mornings.  The J-Rex quickly took to the routines in the book, with their child-friendly descriptions of the poses and fun stories to visualize during each asana, and has been practicing her yoga and meditation with a semi-regularity every since...

...and what a difference this practice is making: I watch her focus improving on a daily basis as she finds ways to ignore and avoid the distractions that tend to plague her.  I see her ability to self-calm surpassing my own even as she goes through the emotional transitions of her seventh year. I observe as her strength, flexibility, balance, fine motor skills, and stamina steadily accelerate forward right along with her mental growth.

Cookin' Up the Harvest a.k.a. Wednesday Food Porn

I'm not what you'd call a "foodie," even though I love food and both the eating and cooking thereof. I'm not into fancy or exotic, though I do enjoy them on occasion.  What I am into is the fine art of being a household chef: You see, to me, the true measure of a good cook is the ability to work with the foods available to create healthy meals the whole family will actually eat and, hopefully, do so with gusto.I pride myself in my ability to keep the family in nutritious home-made soup stock made purely from vegetable and meat scraps we would have otherwise thrown away or my ability to whip up meals of whatever vegetables just happen to need to be eaten ASAP.  These meals may not look pretty...they may not have the delicate balance of flavor and texture you'd find in a fancy restaurant...and, yes, they may be the same four or five veggies made several different ways with little variety in the dishes other than the spices...but they'll feed the whole family for the next several days and, by golly, our taste buds will love us when we're done!

Today was one of those days where I looked in the fridge and realized most of our fresh vegetables were about to go bad, we had a plethora of stock-making odds and ends filling our freezer, and we had just enough space in the fridge to fit a few Tupperware containers of meals...  Those were my cue: it was time to have a bit of creative fun in the kitchen today!

Where's the Nerd in Nerd & Nurturer?

I realized something the other day: I have been overly concerned with turning this blog into something that appeals to a specific audience, namely the homeschooling, environmentally-conscious super-mom crowd. The problem? I am absolutely NOT a super-mom and, though at least one or two trains of my thoughts are always centered on my child and homeschooling, I'm not a one, two, or even three-trick pony.  ...and why would I want to be? I'm not blogging for money (notice there are no ads on this page - yeah, I did that on purpose because I kind of hate the corporate-driven society we live in)...I'm writing a personal blog and the majority of my audience, at the moment, is family/friends.  I would like to have a wider audience at some point because I love to write and I get an odd exhilaration from others reading that writing, but none of that matters if my writing is not true to myself...

Cultivating Health: My 21-day Fitness Challenge

On the first day of September, I was having a day of doldrums...I was feeling bored and unhappy with myself for no particular reason.  Then, I had a thought that was quite unusual for me, "maybe if I do a workout, I'll feel better."

So, I worked out - about 35 minutes or so of callisthenics in my living room - and, sure enough, I did feel better! I felt a sense of pride in myself for having done something for my body that I traditionally have hated doing (for me, exercise has always been associated with injury and feeling wimpy because I never could "keep up.").  I felt a sense of amazement at my increased lung capacity post-smoking.  Most of all, though, I felt a boost in my mood from endorphins that I'd never felt before (likely because I always used to end my workout when it started to hurt rather than push past that point).

A Girl is a Girl is a Girl

Lately, I've been seeing the enlightened denizens of the internet spreading post after post praising young girls who are defying their traditional gender roles.  Now, while I love what these girls are doing, these memes are starting to get my feminist hackles up.  Why? There's no balance! Every single one of these articles or memes I see glorifies the tom-boy but not a one glorifies the strength of a girly-girl.  Worse still, the comments are all filled with adult womens' vitriol towards dolls and dress-up side by side with their praise of girls who want to play sports or do math...

Daydreaming: Literacy Among the Visually Impaired

I'm a daydreamer.  I like to daydream about futures that will never be and realities far from my own.  Sometimes, I like to daydream about awesome things that could be:

The Authority Trap: Admitting When You're Wrong

One of the toughest things about being a parent is being the authority, the one in charge.  You are both congress, the police, and the judicial system: you have to make the rules, enforce them, and mete out appropriate punishments when your rules are inevitably broken.  Not only do you have all the powers of government without the checks and balances, but you also serve as the figurehead: the moral authority on whose behavior your children rely to learn how to behave themselves.
It's not as if we are prepared in any way for this massive responsibility before we become parents - it just happens. Our kids happen. We happen. Our kids misbehave (of course they do - they're still learning ). We misbehave (yeah, we're still learning, too).

Super-Saturated Learning Solution: Unschool at the Nature Center

The first day with a chill in the morning air, a hint of my favorite season coming around the bend, we decided to scrap our day's lesson plans for a visit to our local nature center. 

We could  have spent the whole day there.  In a way, it felt like we did. 

Lemon Balm Sugar: An Experiment and a Recipe

It all started with a vague memory of having read somewhere that you could make any herbal sugar or salt by combining fresh herbs and the medium of your choice in a sealed container, shaking daily until dry-looking.  I had a large amount of lemon balm that needed to be harvested and enough sugar to make a lemon balm sugar for teas but I was missing some key information: the ratio of herb to sugar.

So, I devised an experiment. Granted this experiment would not pass a test of scientific rigour, but we are talking about a product with an extremely high margin for error, after all.  Now, without further adieu, and in super-short science report form, I give you the...

Harvesting Wealth

The best thing about harvest time isn't eating the ripe foods, but finding ways to use the extras, preserve them, and create the wealth that comes from having a taste of the harvest in the winter months.

Steppin' Into Second

our mascot, drawn in our school colors

I am proud to announce that our first week of second grade is finished and went far better than I could have expected! The J-Rex has had some kind of huge leap in maturity and her behavior all week has been 10x better than her best days last year. On her pre-testing (something new I'm trying this year - more on this in a later post), she broke the rubrics, demonstrating a command of language well above her grade level. Most importantly, we had more fun learning together each day this week than we ever did last year!

...but why?

The Thing About Gratitude

This month, thanks to a challenge by one of my favorite bloggers, Mama Scout, I have been trying to spend a lot of time thinking about and practicing gratitude.

Summer, What Summer? Tips from a Washed-Out Garden

I've lived in the same part of the South for most of my life and I cannot remember ever having a summer like this one.  In fact, I'm not even sure I should say, "summer," because it seems like the season never really reached us here.  Our growing season has been wet, cool, overcast, and moldy, oh so moldy...a far cry from the hot, sunny summers so conducive to gardening that I'm used to...and our garden has noticed. The weather has taken its toll in the form of stunted plants, mold, and, worst of all, a spider infestation (we are, apparently, the closest high ground for the little guys fleeing rising waters in our nearby gulley).

When August rolled around, I thought, "Here we go...we still have time for a garden comeback if we get our normal August sun and heat." I guess I counted my chickens before they hatched (but, hey, hope never hurts, I say)... With a cold snap that effectively ended our pool season a month early and rains every other day, it seems, I realized I simply had to let nature take its course, hope the fruits don't rot on the vine before they can ripen, and begin looking forward to a harvest of the warm-weather plants before they're decimated by root-rot and other fun fungi.

Before I began the culling, I decided to take one last photographic tour of my private little food jungle to assess what did and did not work in this, my second year of urban farming experimentation:

A New School Year and a Solar System on the Ceiling

Our first year of homeschooling was, essentially, our "trail run:" I didn't know what I was doing, had no time to prepare, and was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants all year long.  Somehow, we survived with our sanity and relationships in tact, if a bit weary.  Equally amazing, the J-Rex managed to learn an amazing amount and grow tremendously no matter what I did.  Kids are resilient like that...something I think the more high-strung homeschoolers like myself need to remember when we're worrying about providing the perfect learning environment for our youngsters. 

Sneak Peak: Planes (in 3D!)

We were lucky enough to snag free tickets to a preview showing of Planes before it came to the theaters!
 

 This being the J-Rex's first theater experience, we stuffed ourselves on popcorn and candy, giggled and whispered to each other during the especially funny scenes, and, most amazingly, found out that the new 3D technology allows all of us, including the J-Rex who has zero cooperation between her two eyes, to see the effect!

All in all, it was an enlightening blast that will give us no excuses to avoid theaters in the future.  Oh, wait, what was I thinking?


On a Side Note: With four tickets and only three of us, I was able to invite a friend to join us.  It's hard to explain to those who don't have kids how fulfilling it is to be able to hang out with both your child and your friends at the same time without having to feel pressure to switch back and forth from parent to friend mode... It's an awesome thing to have friends like that.

Nurture Thyself

It has been a long time since I nurtured my Self.  Oh, sure, I've treated myself here and there but I have not taken the time to soothe my soul, to ground, to feel "myself," in quite a while.

The Layer Underneath

Today, I harvested herbs, not because we needed them for a dish, but for the health of the plants.

Quitting Smoking, part deux: The Things I've Learned

I've learned that smoking, for me, was not an oral fixation and that I can completely
satisfy a craving by burning paper safely in a bucket - apparently, I am extremely comforted by the smell of smoke (I blame the wood stoves in my childhood).

I've learned that doing fun things with my daughter is both the best reward and the best distraction of any I could give myself when I have a craving.

I've learned that even my subconscious is committed to this lifestyle change because my dreams about smoking are nightmares.

Quitting Smoking

For a little while now (and for the first time in the 15 years I've been smoking) I've wanted to quit smoking.  I began by researching how others have quit, creating lists of alternative activities, and planning a quit plan.  Yes, I just said I was planning to plan...and that's exactly what I was doing...planning to plan to quit.  I never could make the plan or set a quit date because I was scared:  I was scared of not being able to handle the stresses of work, money, and parenting.  I was scared of being a bitch.  I was scared of the anxiety.  Honestly, I was scared of pretty much everything because I would no longer have my nicotine-filled, burning crutch...

Her Fighting Spirit: Protest and Pride

The other night, as I was walking around our neighbourhood, I was sad to see piles of dead bees that had clearly been killed by insecticide sprays. We have been lamenting the lack of pollinators in our garden this year as well as reading about the decimation of the US bee population in general, so seeing this occurring in our neighbourhood was pretty upsetting, to say the least.  As a renter in a Condo complex, though, I felt fairly powerless to do anything about it and simply noted the occurrence and went to bed.

A Bounty of Butterflies

Today, we smelled a breeze filled with the scents of flowers, visited a tent of butterflies and laughed as they landed on our heads, hands, and feet, and picnicked in the shade.

Re-Thinking Fashion for the Fat, Nerdy Girl

This may come as a surprise to people who know me, but, I admit it, I like fashion. Yeah, I know it sounds strange coming from me, but I like art and that's what fashion is: art on the body, just like my tattoos or long-disused piercings. 

As much as I like fashion, though, I rarely indulge my dress-up desires outside of my own bedroom...At first , this was because every time I wore something fashion-forward in school, I'd inevitably get the "you must think you're so cool" comment...not wanting to claim to be something I was sure I was not, I would quickly go back to trying to blend in with the crowd...

I eventually gained enough self-confidence to wear the occasional fun outfit or accessory, but I was always careful not to over-do it, lest I stand out too much.  I was still holding myself back from the kinds of things I really wanted to wear, so much so that my own fears of expressing my creativity began to turn into judgementalism and I began to associate fashion with shallowness and fakers.

Drawing Yourself

Art therapy without the therapy: The challenge was for the J-Rex to completely color in a chalk outline of herself by "drawing what [she] feel[s]."

For an adult, this is a relatively simple task. For the J-Rex, however, it was hard to understand the concept of drawing her feelings.  We talked a bit about what emotions she was feeling at the time, "happiness," and then I sat near her and let her see where her imagination took her...

This Red Ball of Vitamin C

Today, we picked our first home-grown tomato of the season. It looks like an orb of shiny perfection, sitting on our counter without a bruise or blemish upon it.

 

A First Harvest...Eaten Long Since...

In the late, wet, warm days of Spring, we had our first garden harvest.  I took a picture of our small bounty and had a bit of fun editing it to show what we planned to do with everything...and forgot to post it! So, a bit late, I present you with....Our First Harvest:

Any Excuse for Deviled Eggs

It all began with one of my first vegetarian cookbooks, Any Which Way But Meat. In it was a recipe for deviled eggs with mushrooms... Deviled eggs.With mushrooms. Two of my favorite foods rolled into one, delicious, bite-size treat... Over the years, the recipe has evolved to include pretty much anything that's fresh at the time, as long as it had mushrooms and some kind of seasoning.  Today's deviled eggs are about as fresh from the garden as I could get, not having any chickens to call my own (a dream for another time and another post) and were simply too beautiful not to share:

Blogging for the Better

It's been quite a while since I wrote a post on this blog - quite a while during which I had a million thoughts to share and more ideas to write about than I knew what to do with.... So what happened? Why didn't I write up and post a single one of the myriad of topics that have gone through my head in the past couple of months (Has it been that long? It certainly feels like it.)?

Climate Change is a Bitch...But Life Goes On

It has been a very wet and weirdly cold Spring in my region of the world.  I've lost a good half of the foxglove patch and a planter full of tomato, carrot, and marigold seeds due to drainage issues (and my poor placement of the patch), watched hard rains pummel and move seeds around their pots and in our few ground plots, have seen several herbs shrivel due to lack of sun and warmth, and waited anxiously for blooms on tomato plants that should be here but haven't come yet due to the unseasonable temperatures.  Yes, we haven't had a frost in a while now, but in this area, I should already be having to put my lettuce in the shade to prevent bolting and be seeing those same pollinators we attracted in the brief warm moments of early Spring hanging around the garden full-time by now... Instead, I've got a planter to set up again - with better drainage this time (and no more of that horrible hydrophobic potting soil we had accidentally purchased!) - successive plantings to do that had been put off because of the weather, and a bunch of well-watered plants that need to be fertilized...

Surviving the Store with a Scavenger Hunt

Normally, I try to save my errands for the weekends or evenings to avoid disrupting our homeschool schedule with trips around town.  Yesterday, however, I had several items that I urgently needed and the shopping trip to get them couldn't wait any longer.  Knowing I'd be distracted looking for the things I need, I didn't want to neglect the J-Rex's schooling for the duration of the trip and I also wanted to avoid the inevitable chaos that typically accompanies store trips with young children.  So, I decided to turn our errand into an adventuresome scavenger hunt that incorporated math concepts we're currently working on, visual scanning practice (this happens pretty much any time you tell a visually impaired youngster to look for something), and basic economic concepts:

May Day Play Day

Happy May Day! This past week has been a busy one - ha, who am I kidding, every week is busy - a week where I've had a million and one ideas for blog posts without a minute to put my thoughts to bits and bites. Today being May Day, a day of new beginnings and the Joy of Spring, I think it's the perfect time for a new post!

the very beginnings of a home-grown strawberry

May Day is a dual holiday for me: As a born and raised political liberal and fan of the labor unions, I am happy to recognize all the working class people that fought so hard to make our lives easier today with the 40-hour work-week and safe working conditions on International Workers' Day! As a pagan, I also observe May Day as Beltane, the celebration of Spring, fertility, and life.  So, just to make our day as full of celebration as possible, we decided to honor both holidays today!

My Little Slice of Heaven

Over the past week, I've managed to think of several ideas for blog posts, but haven't had the time to write them.  Such is the life of the ambitious, gardening, homeschooling mom... some weeks - especially during planting season - are so much busier than you would think.

Last week was a doozy.  A pleasant set of tasks, to be sure, but, boy, did I have a lot to do!

Survival of the fittest

I picked what turned out to be the absolute worst spot in the garden to plant my foxglove.  What I didn't know when I tilled and planted the flower patch, was that, not only did I inadvertently choose the lowest spot in the garden where all the water pools up but the slats from the porch above us creates waterfalls that pummel the ground in neat little lines when it rains.

During the first big rain after planting, I was fully convinced I had lost all of my foxglove seeds to drowning but, towards the beginning of last week, I started seeing little flower sprouts all over the patch! I was so excited to see that most of my seeds had survived!

Some Days are Such a Blast... A Trinitrotoluene Blast, That Is

These are the days I question myself and my decision to homeschool.*  If you've been reading this blog, you've read about an exceptionally good day in our homeschooling life.  Now, to provide some reality and perspective, I’ll tell you about what a bad day looks like in our household:

Before school even starts, the J-Rex takes over an hour to complete her morning chores that, on good days, can be completed in 10 minutes with ease.  Even then, the hubs and I find ourselves giving her yet more time to finish the parts she neglected, like cleaning up after herself in the bathroom, despite the fact that every single step of her chores are typed on a list and posted in multiple places throughout the house.

We have breakfast and the parental units can’t enjoy our own food because we constantly have to tell the J-Rex to eat, despite the fact that it’s one of her favorite breakfasts.

Now two hours after getting up, we finally get started on school and the J-Rex begins her (routine at this point in the year) Calendar Time, which typically takes about 15-20 minutes.  Today, it takes over an hour and when I check her work, significant parts have not been completed, so I give her more time to finish. 

We go on to our word of the day and, as I’m discussing the meaning of the word “foray” and explaining how to work through a brain-teaser question about the word, the J-Rex starts playing with some hair that was stuck under her eye patch and completely tunes me out, leading to her first time out of the day.  We talk. I explain how I need her attention, she apologizes and we go on to have a fun time completing our word of the day brain teaser, quote of the day, and quiz question of the day.  I feel relieved and have hope for a good day despite a rough beginning…

Spontaneous learning FTW -or- Is this what unschooling looks like?

Having stayed up way too late Friday night watching The Hunger Games on Netflix, I expected to be able to sleep in yesterday morning.  As is typical in parenting, I had no such luck...

After only a few hours of sleep, I woke up to a call from my mother-in-law letting me know that the local Gem & Mineral Society was hosting a free event as part of a promotion for the new 3D Jurassic Park movie. Since my little girl is a dinosaur nut and a lover of stones in general, I hopped out of bed and got us ready to go just in time.  The J-Rex (as I'll refer to her in this blog) was so excited that she grabbed her lunchbox full of dinosaur bones to bring with her, intending to ask the geologists at the event some questions she had.  This turned out to be an excellent idea because, as it turned out, the dino bone in question was not a dino bone at all! It was a drill-core sample!

An Impatient Gardener

Earlier this evening, I was talking with a friend about where we've been finding fulfillment in our lives.  She has recently discovered both a talent and love for baking and has begun the process of turning it into a business.  As I have watched her go through this discovery process, I've found myself thinking about how you know when you truly love doing something:

A common line of thought in the young adult's brain is, "I have skill in this area and I don't mind doing it, so I guess that's what I should do with my life." Unfortunately - and trust me, I've tried this same line of reasoning too many times for my short life - that logic leads to the kind of unhappiness and tension that can only be found in the dreariness of not doing what you love. So, how do you know what you love? It's easy to know if you like something but so often, when you get down to the nitty-gritty details of doing it for a living, it loses its charm.  If you love something, though, you may not have the skills for it already but you're excited about learning those skills and even your failures are celebrated because they were opportunities to learn.  You might not have the time or energy to pursue what you love, but if you love it, you'll find yourself making time where you thought you had none or putting off the more mundane tasks of life in order to do it.  If you love something, you don't tire of the minutia...it is the minutia that excites you, and you're always anxious for more.