Michaelmas...

Really this is one of my favorite festivals - not just for the fun story telling but for the inner work that magically just happens to come with it.

We had our festival last night with our local group and I forgot my camera... thankfully our dear friends brought theirs. View Tammy's blog with our festival pics.

Banana bread and Grammy

Rotten bananas make wonderful kitchen friends! I had three bananas begging to be baked into banana bread on Sunday morning so I got out my favorite recipe and got to work.
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup nuts (we skipped these)

I put the bananas, oil, honey and eggs in the mixing bowl. I sifted together the flour, soda, salt. Mixed it all together and then baked at 325 degrees for about 70 minutes. It smelled soooo yummy.

The weekend also brought a visit from Grammy Pammy. She smushed Sammy's cheeks so much... he is still recovering. Grammy and Sammy.

Resistance...

I had this really big, long post and then I decided it could all be summed up in this song...




I started my day at 3am... woken by the Spirit to learn things I thought I knew. I blanched carrots and potatoes and counted out painting paper that needs to be shipped and then I listened to this song and realized more things that were right in front of my face that I had missed. Today is a wonderful day. I love Michaelmas and the season surrounding it... that battling of inner demons that helps transform us into stronger beings. What a great way to start the day.

Each new day!

I thought since my schedule changed at the school and our mornings are a bit more peaceful I would try to keep some more updates. Last night I was really feeling flustered about my perception of being behind so I took some time to step back, pray and get my mind back on the right track. At about 10:30pm last night, Erik and I prayed together for strength and then he went to bed. I did some praying on my own and got this amazing burst of energy that lasted until 4am! lol... that is usually the time I get up. I slept until 7:30am and woke up refreshed. Prayer works. I got an amazing amount of work done in that time, listened to some incredible uplifting videos on YouTube and really just got myself back into the thing I already know... all is fine, life is great and I am just where I should be! LOL... yeah I have to do that from time to time too! When I look at how much we have grown this year and how much farther I know we have to go, I am so very thankful. We love what we do, we love, love, love being with the kids each day and we love that each day there are new options!

So with that burst... here's some school work:

Harry's has no picture, he is reading Tom Sawyer and can't believe this boy would run away from home and now he's smoking. Harry is just shocked. Speaking of shocked... ok well I wasn't shocked, I kinda already knew but we chatted this morning about a girl at church who he asked if they could "hang out sometime" - oh man his little face lights up when he tells me about her. He said that she loves sports and that since he doesn't he wants to get more fit. I had to laugh. We decided that when he is doing his sit ups/pull ups/chin ups for his scouting requirements that he would think of her pretty face.

Ellie's reading is picking up - the last two days she has asked to do her writing and drawing from the stories in Fe Fi Fo Fum that she is reading on her own. Today's story was the Snow Maiden. I was pretty impressed with what she came up with for her summary, and she doesn't mind doing the writing. I am just letting her be there, I am glad her reading is moving along, she's been so smurfy that I wondered at times if any of it stuck, lol.

Jacob... I'll showcase him today. Today we worked on the compass rose and then he put one on the map he did last week. He wants to join the Coast Guard so he was glad to get some skills that will help him down the road in his career (LOL his words, not mine!) His pictures are on the left, mine is on the right.

Happy Day to ALL my readers!! Blessings.

Folks have been asking...

so I thought I would give a few updates about Harmony House. Things were wonky but now they seem to be trying to smooth out. The first days and weeks were about finding the right staff and helping them learn all they could about Waldorf, now it is about getting them enough training to plan their classes. It was also about finding the right balance for my family - they are not used to being without me and I won't lie, I will be glad when this contract is over, but I think it is good for them too. The children are learning to bond with Erik and mind him without having me there to back things up. At first I was gone in the mornings and that wasn't working so well, for the family or the teachers. The teachers were relying on me too much for their teaching and the children were really missing me. Now we've got an afternoon schedule going that seems to be working better, between that and Emily helping us we'll be in a much better spot.

Thanks to all who have sent us personal emails of encouragement - we have enjoyed them all.


Blessings!

One more picture from our house...

This is the view from the front door... one of the reasons that we moved the rooms around was because Erik has this awesome collection of movie (mostly Star Wars) stuff that was hidden in the TV room (now the boys room) and I started thinking about how much money was in the collection and how it shouldn't be hidden - he loves this stuff and it should be where he can enjoy it... so now Jabba the Hutt lives in the living room. But the gnomes balance him out!

And here is Sammy Lammy Ding Dong's new hair cut... he is full of attitude now. My baby is a big boy WAHHHH!

We finally hired someone!

Well I should clarify so I don't have the IRS at my door... I pay her to run errands for us and take the children with her occasionally.



Meet.... Emily!!! Emily is the daughter of my good friend Tammy she is going to help us lighten our load a bit. She will go to the post office, food co-op, bank, etc. for us a few times a week and take kids with her from time to time - we tracked last week how much time away from working those errands take us and it came up to about 10 hours plus then we end up eating out since we have kids that are fit to be tied from being in the car together for 4 hours! lol. So this will be a HUGE help to us.

Thank you Emily!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!! Erik really liked my birthday french toast, can you tell?

Of course we had to have cake! These are his favorite - vanilla cuppies with grape jelly center and grape juice frosting.

Happy Birthday Erik! I love you and all you do!

Our new house... well new to me...

So I wrote a while back about our house making a transformation... we took what should have been 3 days over the Labor Day weekend and somehow it turned into 10! We rearranged all the rooms in the house with the exception of the kitchen and the bathroom... those will have an IKEA trip all of their own. I've already got a white IKEA bathroom cabinet waiting in the garage for Erik to hear it calling his name, it just needs some flooring and a new potty to go with it.

Anyway... so I am finally getting around to uploading the pictures. Living room view from the kitchen, the compass rose is on the window that we have covered in chalk board contact paper (works out well) - we decided that even though we have a dedicated school room again, since this room is so much bigger, it would be great to use this room for our music lessons too, that way I can write out music on the blackboard/window. The drawers there next to the book case have the toy kitchen food and our dress ups in them.

Living room from blackboard window position. We put the toy kitchen in the living room so that we can all enjoy tea and soup when ever the mood hits Samuel.

School room... the center area holds a board that is wipe off on one side and will be blackboard on the other (we are painting it tomorrow morning) - the other picture is our school cabinet (not sure what I did before that... this is such a huge help.)

An out of focus picture of the autumn nature table in the entry to the school room.

The school room is also the office, so while one side of the room is nice and tidy, lol... the other side houses two laptops, two desks, a printer... you know, the usual.

Time for us...

I wanted to really be careful to not let our (Erik & I) work with Harmony House take away from our love of being at home with everyone each day. This week was an adjustment, for them and for me... I missed them so much! I am a homeschooler through and through - I answered my own longing questions that I have asked for years "if there was a Waldorf (or similar) school available to me... one that I could be part of, would I send them?" I have really pondered that for years... my answer today is a shouting NO. The school is a great project and it will be fun to be involved with them, but I love our rhythm and flow... that can't be re-created in a classroom. It is our magic... but doesn't work for everyone! I know that others need something else - this is their "something else" - I love being able to run to LA if we want on a week's notice and wake up and decide to go to Yellowstone.

So this week was interesting. Once the kids decided that Papa was indeed in charge, lol, then it got easy for them, they had a great week. Harry finished Narnia finally... all of it - he was so proud when he handed over our copy, all mangled and used/abused by him this summer. Of course the first thing he said was "Please don't make me write about that!" The second thing he said was "Disney messed up Prince Caspian." I assured him that next year at Comic Con he would have the opportunity to let the Disney guys know just how he felt about it since they always have a movie panel there.

Harry will start Tom Sawyer this week as we prepare for some lessons on the history of the US (see our gr6 book for details.) We will start with the physics block though on sound. This should be fun for Harry since he is an early riser and he loves meditating with me. When he was young we used to lucid dream together and I was always amazed when his little spirit came to visit mine in our dreams. He is such a good boy, growing so fast. I can't believe this is the start of middle school. He'll get the priesthood in January... move on to 12 year old scouting... so many things... now if he can just be nice to his sister! lol. I am not nuts enough to think there is much hope there any time soon after watching Erik and Laura (SIL) from time to time get into fights! Life changes kids, missions help the boys to grow up (and girls too) but deep down they are still all fighting over that same boobie! LOL!

Jacob is being given one more week to finish up his summer reading book - I really wanted him to be done and he tried but I can't make him read faster, lol... so I'm sure he'll be done this week. He's also going to start on our gr4 material this week. He is growing like mad too... he got 2nd place in yesterday's race! I was so proud of him. He is really struggling with some inner demons right now... especially with his father. He is lucky to have Erik just love him where he is. I know his father tries but he often just can't see what we are trying to explain and why his actions are so hurtful at times. It will work out.

Miss Ellie is LOVING gymnastics. She and Samuel have a blast on Mondays while they learn how to control their bodies a bit... well she's controlling hers, he's incarnating more than controlling right now! There are days when he seems fully in it and others when it just seems like he's somewhere else and not in control at all, lol. Ellie has been focusing this week on her reading. She's enjoying Fee Fi Fo Fum. Grade 2 is an extension of gr1 in so many ways, much of it is about strengthening reading skills helping them feel their way into math a bit more so they are ready for the harder work that begins in grade 3. She's on a great road - her only complaint... "that Papa falls asleep when I read." LOL she cracks me up. I told her not to take it personally, he falls asleep when I read too.

Sammy Lamby Ding Dong is doing well to... we cut his hair!!! (I need to get a picture but we are fighting a bit with the camera) Thankfully it will grow back. He also has been using the potty more and more - on his terms of course. He's got a thing for Cars (ok, I know... I have lectured myself thank you, lol) so when we were shopping the other day I debated buying the Cars pull ups wondering if that would help our endeavour... I asked him "will you use the potty if we buy Cars underpants?" That was swiftly met with "NO! My diapers. No potty!" so I bought diapers (I know... I've given myself the cloth lecture too!) The next morning he got up with Daddy while I slept, asked for the potty, did his business to the tune of a FULL potty both kinds and promptly asked "Cars pants please Daddy" - well I didn't buy Cars underpants! He was mad. lol. He'll live.

I knew that all would be right with the world when Ellie and I joined Tammy and her girls for our handwork class this week. I had missed our classes all summer. This summer Ellie taught herself to knit but she wanted to do something new. I found out Tammy was planning to do a stamped x-stitch with Kayla and even though that isn't on the Waldorf handwork list for a while, I remembered my own advice (homeschool is not school at home!) So we found the same butterfly set that Tammy got Kayla and Ellie picked her threads from here - they say that they are not color fast so I tested some on a little gnomey project of my own and then color set the dyes in the thread with this stuff I had some left from last years silks dyeing. The result was no bleeding.

While Ellie stitched, I tried to finish up this scarf that I made a hat for last year from this - it really is long enough but I want to finish the balls up, lol... they are at the point where they will just irritate me since they are too small for much so I will hopefully get it finished this week and then I can move on to the other project that has been begging to be finished (don't read Mom!) - this vest I have been working on for two years! I want to finally get it done for her for the holiday.

Well that is it for this week... next week we'll focus a bit more on some baking - oh Papa's (Erik) birthday is tomorrow so that will be a fun day! He is the only adult I know who asks for Batman Legos as a gift... he is awesome.

Days 3 & 4 - Harmony House

The week ended with a twist... we have been weeding out moms that aren't sure of the project and those who aren't ready to teach or support the school financially. I have been put in the spot to be the "bad guy" and I am ok with that. I have been detached so I can easily see where the issues are. There were a few moms just not ready for Waldorf and I am glad to know it now rather than months down the road. So that was a little tense but we got through it.

I am excited that there will be a gr2 teacher starting tomorrow. She's been helping as an assistant in a charter school gr1 class. I will start training her tomorrow since she didn't come to our day long training. In the meantime I will continue with the gr2's. There are two more starting later in the week. That will give the class 3 students total and that will be good to start with, it will be great for the 2nd grader that is already here as I feel like he falls through the cracks easily being alone. He'll enjoy class mates.

I probably said this before but I should say it again... it is wildly apparent to me that all the hype about Waldorf being behind in the early years is crap... there, I said it... crap. These kids are brilliant and some come from charters... schools that are supposed to be "better" than their counter parts and NONE of the children gr2 through 10 are where they would be on the Waldorf spectrum... what does that mean? It means that with "No Child Left Behind" these children haven't learned any mapping skills, botany, proper math (9th graders that don't know their times tables through) - so much - they are BRIGHT, BRILLIANT children!! I am enjoying them a ton. We will get them up to speed.

This week the kids 6th grade and up will start with botany (we were going to start with Norse but the book store won't have the books in for two weeks.) They will use the section from our grade 5 book entitled "The Wisdom of Plants" - we will be covering it more quickly since they are older and trying to get through it. Since they have a good deal of catching up to do, they will also being doing some hybrid stuff on Egypt. I thought I would have their teacher take them to the library and see if they need to catch up on library skills and also look up some stuff on Egypt and direct a bit of their own study in that department - and then each do some sort of report about what they learned. Our museum is hosting this so it is my hope they'll go there and do some learning and we'll take our form drawing to Egyptian writing. **They all enjoyed form drawing and after practicing using chalk boards, they all decided that they wanted to make their own books with them so we'll likely tackle that next week sometime too.

Well that works for now... I want to post some family stuff in the next post and also get to work on the next update for gr6... we are close to sending it to print... any time - Erik is doing more edits. We really want this to be the flagship for where we are planning to take all the books in revision. We are going to begin including a lot more pictures and lesson pages as well as DVDs clips to help along the way.

Have a blessed day!!

Day two...

before I start about the school... could someone please pull the barfing monster from our house? Good grief. Samuel was one thing... Ellie came up last night and had her little barf fest in our bed too... thank goodness for Fabreeze... as much as I HATE chemicals, I hate the smell of barf even more. So two nights in a row of being up with littles... it's a good thing I love these children! haha... I hope they are both feeling better today. The weather has been so nice and I love it when they can get out and play. I think we need a nice long walk this afternoon, I know the days of autumn will be gone too soon and we will miss it. I love this part of the year.

The school... yesterday was another good day. The mamas are SO green... but eager to learn which makes a huge difference. It seems that nearly all of them had already started a healing journey of some sort before this all came into being so in many ways this is another step for them. Heidi, the preK/kindy director, has really taken the bull by the horns and I am so proud of her. She's got a great layout. They have a morning and afternoon session (no kids in the afternoon session just yet) and she's got them down. After I brought them the basics and she read Early Childhood Education and the Waldorf School Plan she came up with a flow that will work for them, at least for now. The mom taking on the big kids this month is also doing great. We started catching the kids up on form drawing yesterday and they loved it. They also went on a mapping quest yesterday... this morning they are supposed to see how well they did mapping the neighborhood.

I'm off to start the day, I will try to get some pictures of them today.

I do have to say... while I am enjoying myself, I am a homeschooler through and through and I really miss my kids. So glad we are only do half days. Blessings!

Day one...

Well it went great at the school... the teachers are excited and the flow was wonderful. I am taking my camera today to try and snap some pictures. I think my biggest shock was the older kids - gr6 to about 9th - they are a great group... dang though... what on earth do they learn in public school these days???? These kids, about seven of them, represent I think about 3 area schools and none of them knew what a Norse myth was, a Greek myth, they couldn't label more than a stem on a flower... these are all topics for Waldorf starting in gr4! So we are going to have some fun with it. I am training their teacher this week and she will start pulling out some parts from our gr4 (Norse and zoology) and then some parts of gr 5 (Greeks, Egypt, and botany) and try to quickly move through them in the next month so they are ready to start the gr6 work in Oct. They will probably all move at the same level this year and then do some combining for the older ones next year so that they can get to Waldorf grade level with their studies. There were a couple of 10th graders that have decided that they'll start really thinking about their future this year and try to decide what they'd like to do so the teachers there can mentor them into making a plan.

I've got personal stuff to write too but time has run out... this morning has flown by - off to start the day. Blessings.

Harmony House and harmony at home...

If you've read the previous post, then you know I am working with a start up school. The school is called Harmony House. I'm under contract with their board to work with their teachers to get them going on Waldorf principles. Because of the developmental students they will be taking as well, they don't quailify for AWSNA certification but will be a heavily Waldorf inspired alternative for parents in our area that want it. Me... well I am forever a homeschooler but having another resource for festivals will be fun for the children.

During the transition of the school starting, I am going to be there four mornings a week to work with the teachers, at first they'll shadow me and then I will shadow them eventually weaning them to weekly planning meetings and monthly in service meetings to deepen their understanding of Steiner and his work. While I am off doing that, Erik will be handling the mornings here. He is excited - he's been home for a year now, watching me and editing our work so I think he'll do great. The kids are being good sports about it too. I am thrilled at the experience and it has reminded me how much I enjoy working with a group and helping them reach their goals.

Here's how we are planning to start the weeks... we may have to tweak it so I thought it would be good to use our blog to account what we are doing...

3:30am I'm up working
7:00am I'm dressed and ready to greet my family
7:30am Kids are up and we start our scripture reading
8:00am Breakfast
8:20am I leave for Harmony House
8:30am Chores
9:00am Erik will take them for a walk
10:00am The boys will start their reading time (one hour) and Erik will do Ellie's main lesson with her (she's in gr2)
11:00am This week Erik will work with the boys to see where they are with scouts and their Faith in God requirements for Church - we let this slide a bit this summer. Next week he'll start drawing lessons with them... he loved filming Sigi and learned a lot and he's looking forward to showing the children all he learned.
12:30pm break/I come home
1:00pm Lunch
2:00 pm Lessons with the boys - I will be doing these... this first week though we are focusing on having them finish up two books they wanted to read for the summer and doing some painting and starting new handwork projects (for the boys - Ellie is working on something else for our Friday handwork class... more to come later)

I am hoping we'll be done by 4pm each day so I can get a breather in before dinner and the evening routine. Erik said he'd help me be able to be in bed by 9pm each night - this is a good thing because Sammy needs to get in bed then too and he hasn't been... he thinks he's a big kid! lol.

Let's see how the week goes... keeping my fingers crossed! Sigi emailed me yesterday and asked me how I do it all... honestly... no one ever told me I couldn't so I have never doubted that I could do all, I just do what I'm called to.

Time flies...

We have had an amazing and interesting few weeks. I have had to stop and remind myself more than once that to all of life there is a process and flowing with it while asking for direction is far easier than resisting it all.

Of course we are still working through rewriting the parts of gr6 that were lost... I feel terrible for our customers and I can't even count the sleepless/late night/3am mornings that I have dedicated to trying to piece it together and then deciding to just rewrite many of the parts - the silver lining is that when I just decided to rewrite, the parts that were lost came together smoothly and more beautifully than they did the first time. It is amazing what the Spirit will do to get our attention. It also led us to add some things to the DVDs that go with the books that I hope will further diversity and understanding among all faiths, especially the ones that are being covered in gr6. So that has been a big load, but blessing in my early mornings. I seem to be able to do 3am with no trouble - I think a lot of it has to do with our commitment to getting back to a good diet/exercise and proper water routine.

Other happenings that will have things being hairy in the next bit... about 4 years ago I met a woman, Vicki, who had a vision for a Waldorf school - but not an AWSNA based one because this school would encompass many things that would not pass AWSNA requirements. She's a divorced woman with grown children and she has a foster daughter with severe autism. In Idaho the state pays people to care for these children/adults when their families can't or won't. There are many programs here for that type of care. She saw a school that would work with these children, all kids on the autism spectrum and also meet the needs of families that want Waldorf inspired schooling for their children. While I am a homeschooler through and through, I loved the idea of the project and told her then (4yrs ago) that I would be happy to help if I could. Well LOTS has happened since then! After Erik and I got married I lost track of her for a while only to have her find me about 3 months ago. She was working with a group of 5 mothers who wanted a school like she was describing but they didn't know where to start. They were mostly mainstream moms who sent their children to public school and didn't think much of it until they started going through spiritual changes in their own lives and realized that they wanted something more for their children. When Vicki and I met up again in June, she told me these moms wanted to start in September! She needed curriculum, teachers, a place to have the school... um... TEACHERS... she asked me to teach and I just told her that wouldn't work for me, I am too committed to homeschooling and writing to leave it, I love what I do too much! She understood and then we discussed other ways that I could help. The school as a whole has adopted our curriculum guides as their base! What an honor for both Erik and I, and we have agreed to help them get moving. Over the last month I have slowly been easing them into a different way of thinking - two of the moms are state cert. school teachers so I worried I would have my work cut out for me. Yesterday I spent all day training them on basics in their temporary school house (a cute little house that a parent donated rent free until the school funding comes through for a campus.) I was so impressed at the commitment of these women. I was worried beyond belief when I pulled up to the school yesterday - worried that they were just not going to be ready... they too were worried - they were all insecure about teaching as some hadn't taught more than Sunday school and over all about the curriculum and how to bring it to their children. By the end of the day... even though we hadn't gotten through half of what I wanted to, we all felt ready for them to start their journey tomorrow! Yes... TOMORROW! I have been hired as a consultant to the school as they get started which means that Erik takes the reigns here at home while I am working. I will be working M-Th from 8:30 to 12:30. It will be busier than ever as we are still working on many projects here - we will always be working on new projects... we love what we do!! I am so very thankful to have Erik... we are on the same page and he is excited at the opportunity to take more of a teaching role with the children. More about how we'll actually do it all in the next post.

More about us... this has been a crazy few weeks in more ways than one... in the midst of the data loss, we decided to move a few rooms around - a task that we thought would take 3 days took 10... but we are happy with how the house looks, in fact I think we both realized again how much we love our house and while we don't love the way the politics swings in this state or the lack of whole foods options, we decided to stick it out a while longer. Our dreams of San Diego aren't going anywhere for now and we are happy to go for frequent visits. We got such a great deal on our condo in July that we thought we'd try that again (only with wifi next time!) - plus we really want to get to where our stock all comes from here rather than the printer... I want our customers to feel our personal touch in all that we do and I don't always feel like we can pass that along when we are drop shipping some things and stocking others. I feel an IKEA trip coming on... lol... I sat yesterday and dreamt a bit about how I want to expand our space to accommodate all we want to carry. I want a fully stocked Merc. store with other products as well to offer our curriculum customers at lower prices. We are committed to keeping it all affordable for folks. I'll post pics of our re-arranging after I find out who stole the batteries out of the camera.

On a more melancholy note... the boys have been struggling a bit... they are in such interesting places with their age and they have been struggling with how they feel about their father. They really feel like he doesn't listen to their needs or desires and have even asked Erik and I to find out how much longer they are required to go on their visitations. It is hard. I try to maintain a good relationship with their father and it isn't always easy - the same things that initiated our divorce are in the face of the boys right now. Of course their stages of development have a lot to do with it... Jacob being 9yrs and wanting to argue with everything and Harry being nearly 12 and wanting to judge all around him - it makes for interesting times when they see injustice or feel like they are being played. Prayers for them would be great.

Well that is an update. I am working to get us all ready to get started tomorrow on school/work so the next post will be about our crazy but do-able schedule.

You are awesome if you've lasted through this whole post!!