{Originally Published on Collecting Raindrops}

I was nine, living out the unfortunate fashion legacy of the 80’s, on any given day sporting Jams and jellies or leg warmers and Keds, and devouring Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret when no one was looking. I was ugly and I knew it, like an English Bulldog puppy. The kind of ugly that tugs at heartstrings and causes onlookers to want to scoop her up, fix her a cup of cocoa, swipe the smudges from her pink plastic glasses, and entertain her wild ideas.

A fair amount of my time was spent watching surgeries/procedures, studying oddities that my Dad retrieved from the stomachs of his equine patients, and exploring the barns and acreage around his veterinary clinic. I enjoyed the dual citizenship extended in childhood, dividing my days between reality and imaginary worlds that spun themselves into convincing, more entertaining versions of the truth with colorful landscapes and curious culinary creations.

I was an odd little girl, (which may be the most redundant phrase ever uttered, following the previous paragraphs.) I wrote myself into mystery stories. I concocted ridiculous diary entries that chronicled the life of a more ordinary and attractive girl. (If someone were to find that little diary, some day, which is hopefully decomposing nicely in a landfill somewhere in Oklahoma, they’d be bored to tears and think I lived a very different life…with platinum blond braids.) That was the year I decided on my career path: I would attend Harvard Law School followed by a brief, but spectacular stint as a lawyer before being appointed to a judgeship which would of course, lead me directly to my seat as Chief Justice of The Supreme Court. I was nine–where are the dizzy daydreams of riding unicorns over rainbows (both of which enjoyed popularity in the 80’s thanks to Rainbow Brite, The Care Bears, and Hippies having children) or wanting to be a Marine biologist and work at Sea World when I grew up?

My Mom and Dad encouraged this phantasmic life plan. I was really good at Memory so, you know, I was already qualified.

It never occurred to my adolescent self that I might not be the Chief Justice, or attend Harvard, for that matter. These things were guaranteed because in my other world, my imaginary world, I had already lived them.

My imaginary world was as easily accessible as my back yard. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that it started to crumble. Reality came crashing down and the pillars of my youth showed deep and unsettling cracks. I began to question everything. Pragmatism emerged as an important ally in the days after my Dad left and my Mother couldn’t stand up underneath the sadness that enveloped her. Dreaming, planning, writing, inventing, creating, were dismissed (by me) as childish and I no longer had the luxury of being a child. I locked the door to that world of dreams and tossed away the key.

{Originally published on Sarcastic Mom}

A few days ago I was feeling rather icky. You know what I mean. My heart was sticky with the tar of depression, my head was cloudier than a room full of Milton Berles, and my muscles were aching like I had just run a marathon with Sally Struthers strapped to my back.

So, I did the thing that generally makes me feel happier, no matter what else is going on: I kicked the dog put on my jacket, grabbed my camera, and went for a walk. Movement in Sunshine.

It was about 3:30 and very brisk. Clouds were milling around in the sky, crowding the sun as it begain to trail its path to oblivion for the night… As I strolled along, my muscles stretched and yawned. They woke up a little, and endorphins lifted the corners of my mouth, and my mind.

Usually during such a stroll, and basically as a general rule in life, I am intensely drawn towards visions of Beauty in Nature. I always capitalize when I refer to the concept in this way. It is as if it is its own entity, starkly standing out from the muddle that is everything else. My soul seeks out this type of beauty. My heart beats faster, my breathing slows, and my eyes seem to focus more sharply when I bear witness to Beauty in Nature. I feel… well, alive.

During this stroll, it started off that way, and I got a nice shot of the sun caressing these naked, shivering trees one last time before she turned and went to bed.

{Originally published on The Green Phone Booth!}

Stretching up to my chin, the trim green leaves blotted out the dirt, the borage that really did reseed itself, the dormant foxglove and even the wide stepping stones we put in last fall. A plump green pea pod stood in contrast against the grey March sky. I reached over and gently tugged it from the vine. White flowers, I noted. Shelling pea. The purple flowers were for snap peas and I let the kids get those. But no one was touching my shelling peas.

Sitting on the porch steps, I pried open the pod. Seven tiny peas lined up like clothes in a tween’s closet. Popping them in my mouth, one by one, I realized that I should have waited until the pod was a bit fuller. I also realized that I had a lot of work to do.

It is March and the garden waits for no one. Not even a mom consumed with school volunteer programs and parcel tax campaigns. I shuffled through the envelopes I’d set out on the bench earlier. Pretty packages of pink and green spilled out. Zinnias. Ice box watermelon. Amish pie pumpkin. Potato runner beans. My hopes and dreams for the summer. My homemade meals for the winter.

In years past, spring marched through the garden with neither pomp nor circumstance. The green lawn stretched out sleepily as in winter or summer. The daisies perhaps a bit perkier. The dearth of bees and sparrows rarely varied with the months. The gardeners came through with a bit more regularity perhaps. March never triggered a flurry of activity before. The urgent need to tie back the passion fruit vine, the “o” of surprise when a toad or ladybugs overwintered in the cover crop, the pink blueberry buds peeking out from autumn’s leaves that, neglected, decomposed in the planting beds.

As I sat on my front steps, surrounded by seed packets and dreams, I realize that living this way is a lot more work. I cannot rely on a gardener to mow and blow through my yard once a week. In fact, that gardener and, with him an $80 monthly expense, is long gone. No one will cut down the cover crop and drag it to the compost bin but me. I’m the only one who will take the time - while the kids are in gymnastics class - to sketch out the yard, the open planting spaces, consult Carrots Love Tomatoes, and figure out just where to put the carrots and the tomatoes, the peppers and the potatoes too. When seeds need to be planted or weeds retrieved, it will be my hands that become dirty and chapped. When the grape vine needs to be trained over the trellis or the pomegranate tree transplanted, the responsibility will fall on me. But I’ll also get the first picked pea of the season.

{Originally published at FIMBY- Fun In My Backyard}

I love the idea of Charlotte Mason nature study. No doubt other educators and naturalists advocate this approach but I hadn’t heard of it before investigating CM philosophy.

Picture this: a child in the woods, with a drawing pad and pencil. Diligently sketching a leaf, stone, tree, flower or butterfly. We actually tried this once or twice last year.

Our reality: three kiddos running through the woods, building forts and fairy houses, pretending to be drunken pirates (my son’s latest fascination). We are city folk so when my kids are in the woods I am less than inclined to require then to sit and sketch. In fact I WANT them to run around like crazies, minus the drunken sailor bit.

Don’t get the wrong idea, we are all over nature study at our house. It’s an everyday occurrence but it looks more like this:

- The kids find a couple pieces of brown felt and some fleece from the fabric bin. A copy of the ancient vintage sewing book “The Big Book of Soft Toys” by Mabs Tyler inspires an afternoon of tracing, measuring, cutting, stitching & stuffing. Behold, “Silent Sam” and “Cocoa” are born.

Laurent and Silent Sam

{Originally published on PENSIEVE}

I did something yesterday I hadn’t done in a long, long time.

It was quite by accident, I wouldn’t have planned it, and in fact, had I known what I was getting into, I would’ve done whatever I could to avoid it.

Under cotton ball-dotted blue skies during the afternoon rush, I walked into the grocery store. A full shopping cart and an empty pocketbook later, I walked out into unexpected gray and gloom; not just rain mind you, but furious pregnant drops defying gravity with a sideways pour.

The parking lot had been crowded when I arrived, forcing me to park at the far end. “It’s better for me, anyway” I remember thinking.

There were no two ways about it, I was going to get wet.

Person after person in the same boat as I made a run for it; it’s funny to watch someone make an umbrella out of a bag of dogfood. It’s also entertaining to watch people dancing and dodging to avoid the inevitable–this was a deluge, THEY WERE GOING TO GET WET!

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Originally published at Like I Have Time For This?

One of the biggest traps in homeschooling, if you ask me, is the
constant pressure to Do Things With Other People. Just this morning, in
my email, I finalized plans for friends to come over on Friday
afternoon. As I was finishing that, the phone rang, and it was more
friends asking about getting together for a day trip to a museum soon.
Or, if not that, at least a play date. Or how about the zoo? What are
you doing this weekend? Do you want to check out my co-op? It goes on
and on.

And believe me, I’m not complaining at all. It’s good to have all
these friends. It’s good to get together. But it’s also good to just
not get together sometimes. And for me, being new and still sort of
defensive and insecure about this whole homeschooling thing, I have to
remind myself a lot to Not Always Be Getting Together With People. My
previous post, in which you all were so kind as to reassure me that my
friend was not exactly being friendly, is an excellent case in point. I
could have said no when that woman called and asked if they could stop
by. I should have said no, in fact. We were all tired. I’d spent the
day sorting toys and catching up on laundry. I wasn’t in the mood for
this woman at all to begin with. (Because honestly? That afternoon tea
was only the tip of a very large iceberg. The woman’s got some ISSUES,
is all I’m sayin’.)

But the thing is, I exist on the defensive most of the time. When
people find out we homeschool and start in with the endless questions
on socialization, I want to be armed and ready with a Packed Social
Schedule. It’s ridiculous and exhausting, but it’s hard to stop myself.
And I’m not the only one who does this. Most of the women I know here
are much more busy than I am. They’re stretched thin, and ragged, and
possibly on the edge of burnout. I can see it in their eyes. And
listening to them, I’m learning to simply say No to the endless stream
of activities available to us. But when someone who isn’t a
homeschooler starts asking THOSE QUESTIONS, I’m always quick to tell
them all the millions of things we do all the time, and then having
told people that, I begin to think that I’d better ramp up the social
schedule, just in case those people with absolutely no experience
homeschooling whatsoever are RIGHT and my kids NEED to be surrounded by
other people 24-7.

And the truth is, we need LESS people around. We need some space. We
need at least one day a week where we don’t go anywhere or have people
over. For us, that day is Wednesday. And I guard Wednesdays fiercely.
But maybe, I’m thinking, we need more than just that one day.

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Originally Published on Blue Yonder

You know, I really try very hard to keep our lives simple.

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