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.