Where Are You?

Did we already use that post title the last time we were MIA? Too much going on here in the lives of these unschoolers.

The election, and outcome, were amazing experiences to share with the kids. The night of the election, Mady and I went to eat @ a local hamburger hot spot. It was packed as usual, and the veggie burger was good, even if that is not their specialty. Mady had an enormous chicken fried steak. The girl can eat! She is getting so TALL. As Mady and I slowly chewed our food, our eyes were glued to the T.V.'s in the restaurant broadcasting the election poll results as they came in. I spoke with her about the meaning of all the data on the screen. She seemed to understand though she wasn't very inquisitive about any of it. I had not spoken much with her about the election prior to that night. She did not seem interested. She was much more interested the night of the election however.

After dinner we made our way downtown for some Swing dancing lessons. Mady had a blast and learned a bit. She also made some new friends. Mady has been much more open to new experiences lately. She adores her animals and wants to be with them all the time, but she has been doing a much wider variety of things lately. I hope I am offering her enough options. How many new people does a young girl need to meet? I always think we have plenty of time to do...whatever. In reality, if I stop to think about it, she is 10. 10 years ago was a another life time to me, but it has gone by so quickly. I have a feeling in 10 years, it will be yet another life time to me. I feel as though I need to help her see all the world has to offer. I know my children do not see the impact they are having on my life, I mean, my learning. I am uncertain I would ever have pursued some of the things I am now pursuing if they weren't my children. I somehow feel more responsible for things that happen in the world with them here.

Niki is almost constantly walking around with a book in her hand. She wants badly to be able to read on her own I think. She enjoys me reading to her. Anything. The girl asks me what every word she sees says. We have several of the little books with all the 3 letter word stories. We look @ them often. I think Niki and Luke and Ezra all enjoy listening to Dr. Seuss the most though. The pictures are entertaining as well. I love reading them, they are fun, and funny.

Mady is having to do some actual book work to appease her father. She hates it. It has proven to be rather easy though. I ordered her a few cheap workbooks. I have noticed her reading much more lately as well. I have been scouring Goodwill and Half Price Books for any book about animal rescue I can find. Mady will read if it is about animals. I read to her (to all of the kids) all the time. Tonight we read the Sunday paper for our town and the larger town near us. I tried to read everything but I did skim some of the thing that didn't appeal as much to me instead of reading them aloud. Dom asked me what I have done to help protect my civil liberties. When my answer was, "I am a citizen. I supported you while you were overseas. I sent care packages for troops. I have been to a few protests. I write letters to our reps in Congress. " It all sounded very defensive to me and I began to wonder if our children knew about their civil liberties and what they could do to help them remain their civil liberties. All this brought on by the California Prop 8 article in the paper. What do other people do? Again, am I doing enough to be an example to our kids? Am I doing enough to educate them?

And Ezra is awake...

One thing leads to another

Mady and Niki and I talked about utopias today. We each have our own elaborate list of products, entities, and goals to incorporate in our own personally designed utopias. We had fun making the lists while the boys were napping. Niki wanted to watch Spongebob and said we could talk more about our perfect worlds tomorrow. I thought we would continue to talk about utopias for awhile. I thought after the Gesundheit Institute research and chatting we could make our own models. Mady enjoys playing on Webkinz and Club Penguin so much that designing her own world may sound appealing to her. I thought it may stretch her imagination.

Truth be told, I have enjoyed the utopia books I have read. The whole utopia/dystopia ideal is appealing to me. For anyone that knows me now, I don't think it will be a shock to read my own utopia would consist of all my family on a huge ranch with everything we need to be self sustaining. I enjoy exploring the world outside with my family but when it comes down to it, how many people can you really be close to? How much of what society, the media, the government pushes do we honestly need? Haven't we taken more from the earth than we truly NEED? All this talk about immunizations, lead, mercury, global warming, phthalates, everything around us is poisonious, WE did this. The world is overpopulated and everyone wants to save everyone else. While all the recent deaths resulting from raging cyclones and blinding snow storms are saddening these events are natural. We have no control over them. Global warming maybe natural too. No doubt the human population is contributing to the rapid rate of the melting ice caps, but wouldn't this happen if we weren't here anyway? Experts, you know how I feel about experts, say we cannot return to an agrarian society. It seems to me our planet may not survive if we don't return to a more pure state that closely resembles an agrarian society.

Mady and I are currently planning our garden for the upcoming season. Last year maybe we were lucky with our awesome crop of squash, tomatoes, basil, rosemary, and lavender. It was inspiring to see how much our little garden yeilded, and with such little effort. I so enjoyed playing in the dirt. So here is the list so far.

lavender, basil, rosemary, lemon grass, potatoes, tomatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, some kind of peppers, squash, carrots, peas, green beans, and we have a lemon tree and 3 apple trees bc that is a good number for a small area and pollination. After typing this list it appears I maybe a little ambitious. I will try not to over plant, and if I do, we have neighbors that I am sure will be more than willing to help us eat them. We are getting some more rabbits to aid us in developing healthy, well fertilized soil too! I will post some pix soon of our growing farm. Yes, we have a tiny house, but we are having fun while we live and learn. Oh, pix of the east Texas property coming soon. We are planning a trip @ the end of the month.

One thing leads to another...