life of seven

Beauty in the Every Day

 

School work is what's been happening around here. And knitting squeezed in while I'm helping Jude find "P-P-P" sounds. Despite feeling like my busiest homeschool year yet, with five kids to teach, and a baby and a VERY busy three year old to entertain, it also feels like my most productive year yet. It's fun how the busier and the more work I have to do, the more productive I am. I have no idea why that is. We watched an Andy Griffith episode the other night where Andy tries to free Aunt Bea of her duties by hiring an English butler for a short time. Aunt Bea begins to feel sad and depressed and Opie eventually tells the butler that Aunt Bea used to always sing, when she was going about the house working, but that she hasn't sung for a while. And then the sweet butler puts two and two together and  realizes that he's worked Aunt Bea out of a job and left her feeling useless, so he finds an opportunity to get himself fired, and Aunt Bea gets straight to work cleaning up and cooking and she's happy again.

I couldn't help but understand poor Aunt Bea during the show. I'm pretty sure I'm the same way. Not when it comes to housework, really, because honestly I'm not a great housekeeper, but I just don't care to have huge chunks of leisure time with nothing productive to do. I get pretty antsy and then I just can't wait to get back to daily life and find some outlet for work, and with it, creativity. I probably get it from my mom, who has absolute boundless energy and hasn't sit still for more than an hour in her life. For me it's not necessarily physical activity I crave, but I hate the feeling of not being in the middle of some big, interesting project. A business; a blog; a fairisle sweater; a group of friends over for dinner; figuring out the settings on my camera; sourdough bread; teaching a five year old to read; remembering what sine, cosine and tangent mean and trying to do quick refresher on husing a scientific calculator for the tenth grader; and if all those things aren't enough, dreaming of another, bigger project to tackle in the future. 

Don't mistake me and think that all the projects around the house always get done, haha, far from it. I often have to bring myself back to reality when my husband asks where the clean towels are. Or any towels, for that matter, would do just now... For instance, in the middle of packing for our trip, rather than let my mind put all it's energy into making sure to stay organized and not forget anything for our three months out of the country, I suddenly got sidetracked in the middle of it and began unravelling a sweater I'd knit years ago but wasn't get much wear anymore. This kind of thing tends to drive the rest of my family crazy, and I have to work hard to not float off on a tangent (HAH!) that often.

I think there is joy to be found in all sorts of daily tasks, and plenty of engagement for the mind if you really try. It's something I remind my kids of when they get weary of what can be the daily monotony of their lives. However, it's hard for me to preach to them, "Stick to you scales on the piano everyday and have a good attitude about it, and you'll discover that it's actually fun and you'll be glad you did years down the road from now," when mid cleaning I become distracted and leave to do something else more stimulating.

Oh, the lessons we learn from our kids; so often it's just like looking in a mirror. I guess that's why the Bible talks about striving to make our lives a reflection of Jesus. The closer we get toward living life like the perfect Man, the greater the fruits from it will be reflected in those around us. I say this not to make myself feel more condemned about my failings, but rather as an inspiration and a reminder of God's grace in me, working in me, to enable me to do the task He's set forth for me to do. 

And in the meantime I'm going to pull out my scientific calculator and try to show Cate the joy there is to be found in algebra. I know it's there if she looks for it.

Incremental Development

I have a sweet, cuddly, lovable little five year old who started his very first day of kindergarten today. The day snuck up on me, like everything does, when before my very eyes, my children grow and change and hit milestones long before I realize they are ready.

Jude was an eager little pupil, somewhat curious about what the day would hold, slightly humored at the excitement of those around him when they asked him if he was excited about his first day of school. "Should I be?" his eyes seemed to ask with mild amusement.

Let me just say here that I packed twice the schoolbooks for Jude than what I packed for the older kids. Kindergarten curriculum never seems to suffer from quantity; over the years I have realized it's the quality that often seems to be lacking. This year I decided to go with Veritas Press Phonics Museum. So you know, we don't follow classical education, which Veritas is known for, however, upon having tried many different kindergarten phonics programs, I was curious to try Veritas. I thought the songs, book suggestions, and and workbook looked like something Jude would enjoy.

The flash cards are beautiful: each letter of the alphabet is illustrated by a famous painting. A, for apple (duh), is some famous painting of an apple, that I am not classically educated enough to know the name of, nor the artist. I guess my five year old and I will learn about this together. Anyway, we read a book today about the alphabet, learned a fun alphabet song, practiced tracing lines and circles (I like this aspect of the workbook so far) and colored a suit of armor. Bad mommy; I forgot to make sure I had crayons on hand and the suit of armor had to be one color only: graphite, since the only coloring utensil we had on hand was a pencil. Jude and I looked at 26 famous paintings that all represented a letter of the alphabet. D-d-dancer is illustrated by a painting of a ballerina by Degas. So, at least on the teaching end, this is certainly more entertaining to go through than many other programs I have looked through, and tried. I have yet to see if it proves more efficient, and effective than the simple Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, a book I brought along as a back up, just in case. I can promise Veritas will be more interesting.

For math, Jude is beginning Saxon 1. You guys, I love Saxon math. I love it so much. It's magical. I know some people hate it. The thing with Saxon is that it doesn't pretend to be anything but a math book. It's not fancy. It's not innovative. But it teaches mathematical concepts, beginning with the very easiest ideas, and builds up from there, one small  idea at a time ("incremental development" is Saxon's byline), and, just as Isaiah 10:28 says, " for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little," you can see that even the Bible endorses Saxon's teaching philosophy. You can't get a higher authority than that. And I'm only half joking when I say this. My kids go through love and hate phases with math. And who doesn't? Math is very hard work. And hard work, while extremely rewarding, is not necessarily always fun. There's really no getting around that. So, they sometimes suffer through math, sometimes flourish, and always test very well. Today Jude learned what a calendar was and wrote a 1 in his Meeting book to designate day one of school. We also counted to 30. We were supposed to discuss what mathematicians are and do. I elected to skip that conversation just then. I'm sure we can talk about it another day.

Jude and I looked at a map and learned a song about the capitals and countries of Scandinavia. I love the cd of geography songsI own. I'm determined for the kids and I to learn all of them this year. I can't remember what that curriculum is called, but just google "geography songs" and you'll find it. 

Finally, I showed Jude how to find all the twins and triplets (black notes) on the piano, and had him practicing playing one note four times in a row, then holding it down while counting to two. Jude will probably start piano lessons next summer or sometime around then, and I want to show him a few of musical concepts before he starts that.

That was Jude's first day of kindergarten. While all this was going on, the four older kids practiced piano, picked up where they had left off in their math lessons last June, did spelling tests, looked at maps, journaled, listened to poetry, and read. I managed to check in from time to time and make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to. Also, I threw together spaghetti for dinner, kept Clementine relatively happy, and helped Truman "color" (with graphite). Our school year got off to an impressive start.

Of course I don't expect every day to go this smoothly. I know it won't; life is busy, complicated, and things so very often don't go as planned. That's okay. I'm going to keep Saxon's model in mind as I go forward in the school year, that of incremental development. Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little there a little. Oh right, that's not just Saxon; it's also in the Bible. Just remembering that every single day, putting in just a little bit of effort, not giving up, not quitting and steadily staying faithful to the task at hand is all that God is asking me to do.  

Of rain and thrift stores, and closets of clothes...

Here's what our last few days have looked like. For one, thing, a spring snow storm, that included hail and has now graduated to rain, and will continue the rest of the day, descended on us yesterday. We have had very few "April Showers", so I didn't mind it that much. Not wanting to leave the house with the cold weather outside inspired some organization. The kids clothing was sorted and old items were discarded, salvageable small items were saved for the next child in line, and winter things tucked away, though it felt sort of ironic to pack away winter clothes on a day that it was snowing. Such is life in Colorado, though.

After the kids items, I felt fueled to tackle my closet, the main spot in the house I had been both sub-consciously and consciously avoiding. Crazy how a mental block will keep you from getting something done that is really not that big of a deal when faced head-on. The reality is that it was one afternoon of work to organize, and not even a full afternoon at that. I will say, however, that three bags of clothes were placed in the giveaway pile, and a large storage container of winter clothes was filled to the brim. Oh, not only of my things- it is a shared master closet, and Ben is sort of a clothes horse, if by clothes horse that means he owns a LOT of clothes. It was hard for me to get rid of very much of his stuff because while I'm sure he wouldn't notice if I gave quite a bit of his things away, if I happened to give away that ONE thing that he just can't live without, I would be in big trouble, I'm sure. 

The other issue was that I was pregnant last summer. There were still a handful of maternity things to sort through, and then I had to look at summer items that I hadn't worn in two years, and were mostly thrifted in the first place, and let's just say that not much of it looked very appealing.

Let me just put this out there about thrift store purchases: by the time you have shopped for them (which for me is not a very quick or easy process); bought plenty of extra things you discover you don't like but only bought because they were a good deal, but meanwhile washed and tried to cram in a too full closet; and finally kept the few that were in good shape and didn't look totally dated or funny when worn in daylight; and adding to this equation the fact that time is money, and cluttered closets full of ugly clothes give me a major headache; and it very rarely is the exact style you were looking for; and in fact, thrift store prices actually aren't DIRT cheap; I am just questioning whether thrift shopping is always as cost effective as it temptingly seems. I know, I know, I'm stepping on, or burning up (or however that colloquialism goes) somebody's sacred cow here, but an afternoon of closet clean out of mainly thrift items made me do it.

Schedules, beautiful, terrible, schedules

I don't have a whole lot to add to the blog today since I got my Monday off to a late start after spending the morning with Ben talking about schedules. Oh, how I hate the word schedule. I think of restriction like a strait jacket, not ease and freedom, like Ben promises me the schedule will be. I know he's probably right, and it's true that every minute of our day feels crammed full and there's probably lots of little empty pockets of time that get wasted rather than utilized to move our day forward, but I can't help feeling like wanting to hide under my pillows when I think about what scheduling looks, feels, and sounds like. I haven't given it a fair shot yet, though. I'm willing to do it, because goodness knows if anyone on this planet needs a schedule, it's me. I'm just trying to make the argument that I don't need a schedule, because no one should be forced to suffer through such torture. Apparently "schedules are of the devil" in and of itself doesn't make a good argument? 

Well, I'll be back to this blog one day, I suppose, if I can ever again find a spare minute to fit it in again somewhere in the middle this monster of a schedule. (grumble, grumble)

Okay, that's not very nice of me. Hopefully, now that everything should start running like clockwork for a change, I'll have a nice, long leisurely time every day to write a beautiful blog post. Is that better?

Inspiration: its a funny thing

Well, I did it: I got over the knitting hump, or slump, or whatever it is you want to call it, that I was in. I got out of the slump with not one, but two (2) !! projects. Inspiration is a funny thing. I can never pinpoint just what it is that will cause me to frantically hunt down yarn and print out patterns and the feverishly work on a project like there's no tomorrow, but this time it was Alicia. No, I'm not on a first name basis with Miss Rosy Little Things, but you know who I'm talking about, of course. When I showed her blog to my sister, she said, "Um, why is she not my best friend???" Like everyone else, I love her gorgeous home and photos and most of all, of course, her projects. Well, it took me about two seconds after reading this post to decide I must absolutely crochet a mermaid as well. Because I'm a dork and knew exactly what pattern she used (or he? looks like maybe her husband made it for their daughter? awwwwww....).I'm not linking to the pattern right now because I am trying to keep it somewhat of a surprise since hopefully it will be a Christmas gift. 

Also, somehow I discovered I absolutely must also simultaneously knit Ravi Junior for Clementine. She wore a blue hat this weekend, a store bought blue hat, no less. This would not do: I knew I needed to just dust off the needles and go. So, I did. I want to make plenty of gifts for Christmas this year, and I'm just getting started now. So glad to have the inspiration return.

Speaking of inspiration, you can see just a little bit of decorating I have been doing recently. Now that we actually own our home, and won't be moving literally every.single.year. like we have done our first 16 years of marriage, I figured it might actually be worth, you know, hanging pictures on the walls. Maybe lay down a rug or two. I'm doing little bits here and there: for one thing, that's all the budget dictates; but also because I do not like fussy, overly decorated, crammed to within an inch of its life, rooms. I definitely prefer more simple and spare, and therefore I will take my time so as to not get everything too cluttered with knick-knacks and the like. Amazingly, though, just adding a few items to our family room has caused it to be used far more than we ever had since moving into this house. I didn't like being in the room much before, despite all the bright sunlight, however, it is getting much more use now. Inspiration: its a funny thing.

 

Photos for an anniversary

Last night Ben and I celebrated our anniversary. We've been married 16 years. That sounds like such a big number. I feel like I should only be 16 years old, not married for 16 years. Of course it would be very strange for me to be married and homeschooling my 7 children at the age of 16, but I am just saying how I feel. It is crazy.

I printed out all the pictures of Clementine from her birth and I put them in a photo album, as well as framing some of them. That was the gift that I gave Ben for our anniversary. He feels like I do about photos- loves, them and is worried about not having them accessible. We have lost more pictures than I ever care to think of through the computer crashing or losing hard drives. I have made a vow to never let that happen again, so I am trying to turn over a new leaf and keep them organized and put into photo books. This is a very difficult vow. It seems to take SO MUCH TIME to organize the pictures and decide which ones to print, which to delete, editing them, and framing some. Then, once they're framed, what do I do next? I'd love to put them on walls, in the hallway, on the staircase, but it is hard to make it look right. Oh well, at least I am attempting. I'll try to get the frames hung this weekend and see how they look. This is an ongoing source of guilt for me and at least I sort of have a plan now. The plan is, try to keep up with it and don't wait for iphoto to organize itself. Hah.

We went out last night to dinner and then we saw the movie, "The Hundred Step Journey." We loved it. I definitely recommend it. I saw the preview and knew it would be a movie I would like, and so I decided to read the book while I waited for it to come out. Well, I didn't care for the book very much. It was just okay. So then I wondered if maybe I wouldn't like the movie after all, but it was great. It was such a nice night, just a pretty quiet celebration, but just what we needed.

More Clemmie/big brother love:

 

37 Weeks (and Rain)

Hmm, 37 weeks: that means I am now considered term, though early term. Baby really could arrive any day now. I have had a baby at 39 weeks, 38+5 , and 38+2. So 37 weeks isn't all that big of a stretch. I have a little theory about that though. It has to do with the fairisle blanket I am knitting, which is only half done. I am kind of afraid that I won't go into labor until the blanket is done. If that is the case, I either need to really get knitting on it, or I may have a very overdue baby. Of course I know that babies will always come when they decide to come, but in the back of my mind I have a to do list (the blanket is just one of the items) that I feel like I won't be able to relax and have the baby till the things on it are done. It's a list of silly things, like the blanket, putting all the supplies together in one corner of the bedroom, talking to my friends about watching the kids when it's time, ordering herbs for an herb bath afterwards, getting a couple extra flannel blankets, pick up one more cotton baby cap; like I said, silly things that will take about five seconds for me to do (except the blanket: definitely not a five second job). But mentally I don't feel quite ready yet to go into labor. Maybe I'm just in denial that little Seven really could come so soon.

On another note, no pregnancy log of mine would be complete without my mention of my favorite activity in the final weeks of pregnancy: a warm bath and a book, made even better with tea, once in a while candles lit, and, today, the penultimate luxury: a rainy afternoon outside the window. When I was about ten or so, I read a phrase in a story, about a mother who liked to take a warm bath to "soak away the cares of the day." I began to use that phrase jokingly way back then, which my own mother found quite funny, but little did I know how much I would enjoy that warm bath in the future, as a mother myself. Yes, a daily, or almost daily bath, is a must for me in those final few weeks or days before the baby arrives (though I love a bath anyway, no matter what), and one would think that I would be an ideal candidate for having a waterbirth, however, water during labor doesn't actual appeal to me all that much, oddly enough. Maybe this time, though. We'll see.

Speaking of water, boy have we been getting the rain here. It has been glorious. I have enjoyed every single cooling rainstorm that the afternoons have brought for about the last five days in a row. It is only supposed to get up to 72 today, with rain off and on throughout the day. Lovely. I am thoroughly enjoying this week of rain, though I am glad to live in an area where week long rains are the exception, and where I know there are many days of sun right around the corner. When it's so sunny and hot I long for the rain, but in reality I do I prefer our sunny, dry climate, with the sun making its joyful appearance 300 days out of the year.

 

Craft Room Clean-Out

I'd thought I'd show you my sewing/craftng space today, or one of them anyway- I typically have quite a few crafting projects floating throughout the house, and I have a closet in one of the bedrooms downstairs full of crafting things as well, but this in the main one, and I share this space with the master bedroom. It gets a little crowded when I am in the throes of a project. Also, messy- thanks to the midwife home visit on Tuesday, I got inspired to clear this space out and organize it, which mainly involved lots and lots of fabric folding, and then that little detail work of putting each little item back where it belongs- knitting needles here, pins there; scissors, measuring tape, patterns and all sorts of odds and ends back in the proper spot. It takes a while and my sewing room hasn't looked this organized in months.

Here is the other side of the room, where our bed is. I'll most likely have the baby in this room, thus the need for it to look more like a bedroom and less like a creative crafty person's haven who happens to be in the middle of ten projects at a time (I'm sure my husband appreciates the junk getting cleaned out, too). 

While I love looking at pictures of people's sewing rooms, I always smile a little when I do so, and wonder if that is what they always look like, or whether they are only 15 minutes away from a new crafty mess. In general cleaning it up right away has always worked best for me, however, over a period of months, mess and chaos build up and a thorough clean out becomes necessary again, and I wonder why on earth I waited so long. For me these spaces have always had a life of their own, like a garden that gets overtaken with weeds if not weeded weekly or daily. Well, this time around I am going to do better (she says, with the same resolve she says every time the craft room gets a thorough clean-out)!

Jurisdictions

You know your two year old belongs to a large home schooling family when he has the word "jurisdictions" in his vocabulary. As in, "Evie, go do your jurisdicition." No, it's not a word he knows because of all the Dickens and Austen we read him, but because it is now a part of our daily vocabulary, as in, house jurisdictions; as in, everyone, go clean up your jurisdiction.

House jurisdictions are something I have read about a lot over the years from organized mothers of very large families. For some reason the idea kind of freaked me out. For one thing I thought the name was corsy. A perfectly legitimate reason for discarding an idea, I say. But back in January when my husband and I were discussing how to keep the house clean and running with our busy lives and the new baby on the way, I told him the idea of jurisdictions as I understood it- each child of the family is given a section of the house or a chore that they are in charge of. Basically, it is their job to keep the area clean and picked up throughout the day. When I phrased it that way I realized that the idea was actually pretty simple and easy. Why did I never implement this idea before??

So we assigned each of the four older a room assignment and we even kept the name: jurisdictions. Of course, that's why the homechooling moms call it that- because it is impressive when the two year old knows the the word and uses it, nevermind the seven year old (using a bit of sarcasm here, something us homeschoolers are infamous for not knowing how to get)...

Anyway, back to the subject at hand:

Cate cleans living room.

Grace cleans family room, bedroom, and what I lovingly call our Waldorf room (see above)--by the way we are not Waldorf homeschoolers nor follow any Waldorf curriculum yet I make and sell Waldorf dolls online and our house has a Waldorf room. Go figure--

Gideon cleans downstairs bathrooms and storage/cellar/dog room.

Evie cleans hall and laundry room.

I clean kitchen (which the children always help me with, anyway) and master bedroom. When I feel like it. Just kidding. Kind of.

That's it. Yes, our house is small. There's a couple of other rooms that don't get too messy and we just do those together.

If someone else is responsible for a big mess, that child has to clean it up rather than just leaving it in someone else's jurisdiction to clean.

We clean each jurisdiction at the same time three times a day, after breakfast, lunch, and before dinner. And any other time that it needs it. We still need to do bigger cleaning sessions throughout the week, for washing walls, windows, vacuuming, mopping, etc. And I have a big season clean up and organizing every season or so where we go through closets and get rid of junk.

Don't you just love the word jurisdiction now???