achoo

I discovered the Alliance for the Separation of School and State tonight. It's pretty interesting.

I am sick or have terrible allergies. I'm not sure which.

I made pesto today with the last of the basil in the garden. It was OK. Too garlicy. I also did all the dishes while the girls played math and science computer games, then discussed Sojourner Truth and slavery with them, and read some. Charlotte made french toast. Gracie has finally gotten over wanting to read the bear book over and over and is content to hear any book she finds once, then to point to pictures and be given names of people/things. I can see her collecting words - her eyes are such windows.

The current wheel in my mind is wondering about the details and consequences of getting our family RTW paid for by allowing it to be filmed as a series. Chris said no way.

This girl reminds me of Eleanor. When she asks, I'll oblige.

magical car door shutter

Thursday night I woke up with an allergy attack, couldn't breathe well or go back to sleep. I spent all of Friday cleaning out our room (remember the clothes carpet?) and damp dusting the walls and floor. I turned the bed around - like parallel parking in our little room, and left the dresser in the hallway. I slept better that night, then slammed my little toe into the dresser when I woke the next day. I think I may have broken it. I spent all of Saturday laundering and organizing every single garment in the house. I was very happy to spend my weekend this way. It's just what we needed. It's funny how your idea of bliss changes over the years.

I spent $200 on food over the last 2 days. I never do that. I went with Sue to Sam's. I wanted to get workbooks for the girls to have available when they were in the mood, but they looked so boring I skipped the comprehensive ones and just got one math book. We all sat on the kitchen floor that night and worked in the books. It was something fun they felt like doing. I am really embracing the unschooling philosophy. I read through The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn. Boy do I wish I read that when I was in high school. It came out when I was a freshman.

We finished the most delightful book this weekend called The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. SO Lovely. Before that we read Emily's Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary. Pretty good.

A friend pointed out this website. Look what I am so pumped to make: I love power shovels!


Chris took the car to a body shop today and they couldn't open the back door either. It will have to be cut off and replaced, and so it will stay locked. Eleanor is magic. Good job Eleanor magical car door shutter on the seat belt magician.

As for us today, we went to the gym, where the girls ran around in the actual gym while I watched from an elliptical machine, then we went grocery shopping. I let Charlotte pick out anything for her birthday breakfast and lunch. She chose oreo flavor pop tarts and spaghettios. Oh boy. Then we went to my aunt's and picked the the last of our carrots, tomatoes and basil and had a nice lunch and chat. It was raining. Next they went to girl scouts. Their scout leaders are awesome and have so many great academic and service projects lined up. I got their first little patches today.

chicken soup

I love this song today.

I am making soup. It's awesome.
One chicken carcass with a lot of meat left on it.
The lemons, garlic, and bay leaves that were inside when I baked it.
Throw into 10 cups chicken broth (leftover frozen from making empanadas)
3 squash, a few carrots, and a leek leftover from the roast chicken dinner - blend these with some of the broth and add back to the pot.
Cook on low heat till the meat falls off, strain the bones and bay and lemons out.

We also squeezed in baguettes today. I did the first step before roller skating, then begrudgingly took them because I had promised, even though we had housework to take care of and it meant I would go unshowered, then squeezed in the next step between skating and work, then finally baked them and enjoyed them at 8:30 PM. With soup.

The girls LOVE the video camera. I will wait to post their efforts until Eleanor's inclination to stick her face into the lens and scream subsides.

I love leaves

This was the favorite activity at our lovely Learners' Fair today.

This is our table at the end of the Fair, after the kids had yanked the table cloth down a few times.  Our display originally included piles of waxed leaves with name cards, books and paintings the girls had made, and a plate of pumpkin cookies to share.  
We were just trying to express our enthusiasm for this:  
Is it my enthusiasm?...I'm trying to share it with them, anyway.  I tell them the trees look like stained glass windows in the sun.

Over the weekend the girls and Violet and my dad and I went fishing briefly.  The bugs and heat and crying hikers were worth the pictures I got.



Eleanor even caught a fish!

When we came home today for a half hour between the fair and work, very tired, and needing to use the time to enter grades and not clean our messy house, I found that Chris, who I was already thinking gushing thoughts about today, had secretly come home, cleaned the first two rooms, and left me a belated birthday card with the (very basic) instruction manual for a flip video camera that I had been wanting for our homeschool - yay! I almost cried. I am so excited that he's so awesome and so excited for the movies the girls and I will make together (so I cannot sit at the computer tonight - I MUST retaliate with washed dishes before he gets home.)

By the way, energy in class is fun again and I liked the look of my little shrine after working on it some more that I angled it so that, just before I turned out the lights in the classroom, I could gaze at it one more time. ha

ooh, just one more thing, this is hysterical.

See more Will Ferrell videos at Funny or Die

I love brownies

The energy in class was lame today. Last week had been awesome. I worked on my day o dead shadow box. lame o dead. I can't believe I'm supposed to be the teacher sometimes. The pressure of being an expert. I am expert at nothing. These are nice. Buy them here.

I think I am drawn to these because I grew up playing with this music box. The little paper clown is jointed and dances to clair de lune; also dances when you turn him upside down and shake him.


My mother in law, whom we shall now just call Sue because she is becoming too daily a force in my life to be referred to as MIL, made box brownies that are like crack - I willingly eschew all social graces to get just one more in my mouth. The perfect blend of melty oil and chewy sugar. Ah...

The girls and I did our first service project together. We packed meal bags for Feed My Starving Children. One kid holds the little plastic bag under a funnel and calls out each ingredient while other kids dump them into the funnel. Tonight the girls were still yelling, "Chicken! Veggies! Soy! Rice!" Charlotte, my desperately picky eater, enjoyed the sample of this pilaf so much she told me sometimes she wishes she could live in the village so she could eat this. Maybe she didn't totally grasp the informational video. (You can watch the same video through the link.) It felt good to do this small thing. I wondered what it would be like to just eat one bowl of this once a day for a week. We are such gifted whiners, we Americans.

deviled eggs

Eleanor has been cooking. These were delicious.
Boil 10 eggs, peel, slice in half, scoop yolks into bowl.
Mash yolks with
about a 1/4 cup smart balance mayo
5 second squirt of yellow mustard
1/2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp honey
Scoop into whites.
Try to get Eleanor to share some.
Ignore Charlotte's whining that she hates deviled eggs.

We also went to the theatre today to see Scrap Arts Music.

We attended a show for kids. They played instruments they had made from otherwise garbage. It was very high energy and creative - a little Blue Man, a little taiko, a little Wiggles.

RTW

Chris put this song on one of the mix tapes that we had in our car in Japan and it brings me back every time I hear it.Before kids, I planned to backpack endlessly around the globe and made no alternate career plans. What I love about travel is the elation that comes from stripping away daily habits to more easily reveal a true sense of self. In widening my scope beyond my environment, I feel I deepen my scope within. I love to travel alone and feel like a perfect sphere of a person - not being dented and misshapen by daily pacifying, compromising, expectations, anxiety-inducing relationships. Like a floating bubble with no ties, no people-pleasing. Just adventure, and the kind of wild-eyed observation that sizzles in the eyes of an artist like on two hot pans.

Traveling with two toddlers in Japan was an overwhelming responsibility and mostly we just tried to live our simple lives in a small town. It was there that I really began to appreciate the nuance of beauty in the mundane and the spiritual value of living simply. That was the treasure we brought home. I can't remember Japanese anymore. Sumimasen.

I love our life here and my smokin hot husband. More now than I did in Japan. I still try to talk him into going back - the yen IS much stronger than the dollar now, but he is sure he doesn't want to. I am "teaching" the girls geography by flipping through The Travel Book, asking them where they want to go on an RTW, and putting a sticker on the wall map.

What is an RTW? Why, a round the world trip. All at once. Why would you do that? To really get into the spiritual culture of travel. To not pay for living expenses at home while you are traveling. To save on airfare. Because it would be awesome.

Here are some families doing RTWs together:
One Year Off
Coomer Family
Family on Bikes
Bowman Family
Six in the World
Tims Family
Carlson Family
Bagan Family
Escampette
Fleming Family
soul traveler's 3

See also:
circle the planet
gonomad
BootsnAll
Lucy Travels