The Bike Ride

This morning I made oat bran muffins to force on Chris' LDL's and then black bean salad, using some of the beans I cooked all day yesterday. Then I spent a half hour putting together a piece of shit bead loom that turned out to include needles that did not fit the beads included. The brand is "creative Kids." Save your $5.99. Next we managed to get dressed and even out the door. Yesterday we tried to meet the unschooling group at a park but no one was there and we waited a while and then left, which was OK because then we just did something with my sister and niece who are in from out of town. It was so hot we just went Chuck E Cheese. We came back our way to stop at the farm to pick up our CSA at peak traffic, so I indulged in a stop at a Hobby Lobby along the way to pick up said Bead Loom, some clay, and a game of jacks. I really just wanted to get them some origami paper, but it was $5.99 which felt like a slap in the face. I refuse. In Japan, they sell the same stuff at the dollar store. Yeah, I understand this isn't Japan, but I will cut printer paper into squares before I pay a 500% mark up. My cell phone had died that afternoon, and as I crossed a hot parking lot, blissfully alone, to pick up Starbucks for my sister and I to drink at Chuck E Cheese's, I felt the marked absence of my usual dull anxiety and was reminded of the peace I had (sometimes) in Japan. I think mostly because I was alone and no one could get a hold of me, even if it was only in a parking lot for five minutes. These moments matter. So I thought about simplifying life through less talking and I also realized that just because we can go somewhere with our flexible schedule as homeschoolers, doesn't mean we should. We spent almost 4 hours in the car yesterday. Lesson learned. (And of course we've been drive-thru free since last week's lesson.)

meditative paring down



My favorite site right now is tinyhouseblog I am obsessed with these. The tiny houses that keep me up at night are at once pioneer spirit, clever Japanese dual purpose design, environmentally sustainable, voluntarily simple, and best of all, possible on a budget. I am working on a design for my family. I really do work it all out in my head while I'm laying in bed.

So after the bead loom, the girls and I met a new unschooling group for a bike ride. When we got home, we wrote a book about it called, The Bike Ride. Charlotte couldn't keep up with the group on the trail and we ended up getting lost, which I realized with alarm when we passed the same observation deck for a third time. Unfortunately Eleanor noticed this too and that was more information than Charlotte could handle. I can barely believe we're not still there. When I was a kid we had a lazy shitzu who would sit when you walked her, really dig her heels in and then twist her neck so the leash popped off. That's Charlotte, (in her defense, the bike is a piece of crap) but with a lot of sobbing. Sobbing that led her to not pay attention and run into a thorn bush and that had her stopped in just the right spot for a good sized snake to slither up to her. It was so dramatic with the snake and the sobbing and the thorn scratches and skies looking ready to heave, I just had to laugh. I told them we should write a story about it when we got home. When we finally got back to the car, I nearly gave myself a black eye trying to get little bikes on a big bike rack and for the first time all day felt a twinge like crying, but we made it to the picnic. Naturally everyone was finished eating and then Eleanor was stung by a bee and was alarmingly loud about it. It was really a beautiful day, though. It was the first cool day we've had, my favorite weather, overcast and 60, with falling leaves. just a few. I love those woods and I'm so pleased to have met such a nice group to share them with.

The girls were so thrilled with their book, illustrating it, putting the pages in order, reading it out loud after finishing. I have given up on the journal requirement. I am still hanging on to the no TV on weekdays rule, though. I was trying to tell someone today that unschooling, in my mind, is like the spaceship in Contact, where the more highly evolved beings have sent a perfect design and the NASA guys insist on adding a seat with safety straps that nearly kills poor Jodie Foster when the ship's perfect and simple sphere design shakes loose the extra seat. I see the school system as this attempt at safety and the natural learning process like the obvious sphere. Obviously. I don't think we need a name anymore. I won't force piano lessons and overzealous field trip schedules on them anymore (...in my mind. I never got that far anyway.)

It is 11:42 and I am making the spaghetti sauce from Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It smells amazing. I finally collected 30 lbs of garden tomatoes... maybe too many, even. I planned on canning, but I already screwed up the pH... I made meatball ...dough... too, but I just don't have it in me to cook them up tonight.

2 lbs grass fed ground beef
1 lb ground pastured pork
1/4 liverwurst
1 bulb garlic, crushed
1 cup kind of packed fresh parsley
4 T onion powder
1 1/2 cup oat bran
4 eggs
salt and pepper

Roll them into little balls, drop them dry onto a hot skillet for a few minutes, then into the sauce for a couple hours.