in pursuit of wild things

Right now my husband and kids are playing Mario Kart together. I like to listen to them talk, fuss and laugh together. Sometimes they say things like “mushroom gorge”, “boom shell”, “you insult me”, and “my spirit is ascending somewhere”. Game language isn’t something I understand these days. Eavesdropping on their game-talk is down right puzzling but always amusing.

Tomorrow my mother arrives for a (hopefully) brief visit. Her last visit was quite miserable for all of us…even her. I think she visits because she feels obligated. I’m not sure she even likes me. She’ll be critical on my housekeeping, where

I keep my dishes and how we treat Oldest. I’ll say something snarky in response and then feel horrible. I’ll be a wound-up mess by Thursday. But, you never know, it could be one of those rare nice visits when she is pleasant. It could happen…

I’ve spent some time the past few days researching books and projects for our next study with Beautiful Feet Books. The older kids loved the look of the new Around the World guide and books. They pointed out that I never did an “around the world” study with them. I did do a Christmas Around the World unit study out very first year of homeschooling. I’ve found a read aloud for them and today settled on some

projects for the older crew and hopefully we can get started next week. Our first country is China. Tomorrow I plan to drag out my husband’s travel box since he went to China several times. I also might get one of the Asia snack packs from Amazon just for fun and we may try our hands at making dim sum. We are all looking forward to the new study and I am happy to have a home education project to customize and create projects for. Following curricula is okay but I do enjoy creating and adapting studies for the kids.

We’ve already started evaluating the books and studies we’re using this year. We really like everything we are using but some of it just doesn’t work with our current season in life. I am working and will be working for a while so some of the lengthy lessons will need to be replaced with more direct lessons. We like our current grammar with the added geography and

art but a more stream lined course would be better. Sparkles just cannot always take a full day of lessons and she needs to spend more time with math and less with grammar. Right now we are just coasting and finishing up the books we have but I’ll be searching for our 2018 restart. January is always a good time for a mid-year reboot. Also Oldest and Littlest will make their grade changes as well.

We went to the zoo on Saturday. We stumbled into places we had never seen before! I think the otters were our favorite during this visit. The zoo was decked out for “Hallzooween”. The kids put on

their costumes (just two of them) and gathered a few treats around the zoo. I enjoyed all the little ones in their outfits even if the zoo was crazy crowded. We plan to make one more trip when the Christmas lights are up before our membership runs out. I promised all of the kids a shopping trip at the zoo shop for our last visit. I’m certain they will not let me forget.

Work was kinda brutal over the weekend. My back is still a bit sore though I am not sure how I hurt myself. One of my supervisors gave me a hard time for misplacing one package of carrots. One package of carrots! I found his obsession over my mistake somewhat amusing. I guess I was supposed to be upset and embarrassed or something but I wasn’t. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, especially me. I just laughed and fetched him another pack of carrots. I can laugh at my own mistakes. I guess that isn’t the usual response at work. My job isn’t the center of my life and my self-worth

isn’t tied up in my position or job title. I’m much more concerned with managing my kids education and spending time with my husband than impressing anyone at work. This is just a temporary experience until I reach a goal. Anyway, when I worked with my supervisor this morning he teased me terribly over the carrots. But when the customer who always gives him a hard time pulled up I went out and took care of them for him. He didn’t mention the carrots or point out any other mistakes after that. “Be nice” always works.

Life Aspirations

Okay, so I am supposed to come up with a “bucket list”. I find the term somewhat appalling: though I am not sure why. I’m still working on the list but I do have a few items in mind…in no particular order:

I want to:

1. see the ocean.
2. grow a proper herb garden.
3. learn to be a proper photographer.
4. write a book of poetry even if it is only ever published on this blog.
5. see a Redwood Tree.
6. see an iceberg.
7. stay in a tee-pee hotel.
8. ride a train
9. sleep on satin sheets.
10. drink from a coconut
11. walk on a beach
12. snorkel
13. learn to use chopsticks
14. make pasta from scratch
15. build a sand castle
16. survive a silent retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani
17. visit Washington D.C.
18. see a desert at night
19. throw a dart at a map and go
20. drive route 66…or at least part of it
21. see the aurora borealis
22. see New England in the fall
23. see Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument
24. see Badlands National Park
25. see a Vincent Van Gogh artwork
26. see Galilee
27. see the Statue of Liberty
28. play golf
29. make a piece of pottery
30. walk a part of the Appalachian Trail
31. Mardi Gras in New Orleans
32. still be awake when the New Year arrives
33. learn to paint and be happy enough to hang the work on my wall
34. graduate my kids

That is all I could think to put on a list this week.

Artistic Discipline

Last week I started a little course book called The Artist’s Way. Trying to do the exercises each day has been challenging. The morning pages have been hard to get in each day. Sometimes I

start them before going to work but cannot finish before leaving at four-forty in the morning. I could get up fifteen minutes earlier I guess…I’ll have to think about that. The book also has several exercises to choose from to work on each week. I’ve decided to take two weeks for each set of assignments since my schedule is kinda full these days.

One of the assignments was to make a list of five imaginary lives. What would I be in each of those lives? I thought this was fun and decided to share. I chose a traveler, a monastic, a self-sufficient/sustaining farmer, a natural medicine healer, and a book store owner with my home above my downtown shop. I had fun imagining what these lives might be like. The challenge with the list was to pick one of the imaginary lives and bring an element of it into my actual life. I wasn’t really sure what to do at first but found an online class through Monash University on food as medicine. The kids and I are doing the

course together.

I have two more assignments to complete in the book this week as well as the Artist Date. The two assignments are to write letters, neither of which I want to do. She says any assignment that we resist are the ones we should do. So this week I will be writing a letter to one of the people who hurt me and a letter to one of the people who helped me. I do not have to send the letters but I do have to write them. I also have to write the letters from the perspective I had when those moments occurred and not from my current viewpoint.

our books this week

clean laundry, sleeping kitty

Boots and Middle Boy

zoo trip

with my crew…I forgot to get a picture of my husband with the kids

picking on Oldest

otter and Middle Boy

otter

red panda

lunching out for the day

shopping fun

poetry time

reading poetry

she would not look at me

she finally looked after I took a dozen pictures

trying to wear Daddy’s shoes