I love beets. I love knitting. I love that Eva just showed me how she likes to pound her little fists into pillows when she is upset with Samuel. I love that she tells me she is upset with Samuel. I love guinea pigs. I love fall. I that I picked mesclun and a teeny bit of kale from my garden today. I love my produce basket. I love the change in vegetables from season to season. I love chocolate. I love Eva's toe puppet show. I love that we are finally getting seriously close to Samuel's New Super Mario Bros. wii game coming out on Sunday. I love writing. I love feeling. I love being. I love tea. I love my ipod. I love digital cameras. I love hats. I love my hat on my head keeping me warm right now. I love preventing migraines. I love sleep. I love dreams. I love the little pictures of ghosts and skeletons the kids made this year and hung up for Halloween. I love spiders. I love the compost pile. I love boysenberries with sugar in the middle of the winter. I love remembering that perfect upick day last summer when I stumbled upon the perfect rows of yellow raspberries with a few reds mixed in and the kids were for once content to hang out for just long enough for me to pick as much as I wanted. I love that.

Maybe

Lovely little zen story. There are more here if you are interested.

Maybe

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

I got to thinking about this particular story last night when Eva used up my shampoo in her bath. All of the shampoo. A whole bottle. Here's my version of the above story-

Eva was taking a bath. She asked me, "Momma, can I use some of that shampoo up there in my bath?" And I said yes. I left the room and came back. She said, "Momma, I love the way this shampoo feels on my legs. I used the whole bottle. Do you have anymore?"

I said, "No, there is no more shampoo. Did you really use the whole bottle?" She said yes. I thought. "Oh no! She used the whole bottle. That is horrible. That cost $10 for that bottle of shampoo. That is horrible. Now I have no more shampoo. What will I do now?"

I left the room and I thought, "Wait a second. I hated that shampoo. It made my hair feel dull and flat. This is great. All of that shampoo is gone and I didn't have to trudge through using up that whole bottle. This is great. I couldn't wait until I had finished up that bottle of shampoo. This is great!"

The next morning I got up and wanted to take a shower and wash my hair. I realized that I didn't have anymore shampoo. Eva had used up all of it in her bath. I thought to myself, "Oh no this is awful. I wanted to wash my hair and I have no shampoo. I have to make a special trip to the store to get some. This is awful. I don't feel like it. I wish she hadn't used up all of the shampoo."

And of course you know how the story goes. Once we ended up at the store to buy shampoo, the brand I had been wanting to try out last time was on sale and there was a fragrance-free variety that I hadn't seen before that turned out to be just the thing. I was so happy that Eva had used up all of the shampoo in her bath the night before...

I am really looking forward to trying out my new shampoo. I bet I am going to love it!

Maybe yes. Maybe no.

what's dependent on what?

Stymied. Thwarted. Undone. My blogging came to a crashing halt when my hard drive filled up and I was no longer able to upload new photos and movies from my camera nor change the size of the ones I had recently uploaded. Just upload them from the camera, you say? If my tolerance for frustration were higher, I might go ahead and do that, but it isn't, so I don't.

I kept waiting for the hard drive issue to be fixed. Put the blog on hold. Everything I wanted to blog about had to do with a recent photo- the beauty of fall outside, the kids' Halloween costumes, our new guinea pig Terrence. All wonderful things to write about and I really wanted that writing to be accompanied by photos. Time on blogs waits for no one, however, and as I sit here waiting for my photos to be usable, time ticks away and now it is over a week since Halloween and two since we brought Terrence home from the humane society.

So I will start from there. We brought our new guinea pig Terrence home from the humane society hmmm a week before Halloween. He is black and orange colored, a silky guinea pig, so very very soft and much smaller than Albert. I am still wondering if he is full grown or if he is younger than the humane society thought. Albert and Terrence are doing really well together and are now sharing one cage together. We ordered a bigger, fancier cage for them which should be here next week. Dare I wish that my hard drive will have expanded by then as well so that I can include photos of their new space? I'll wish it but no breath holding. Blogging, as you can plainly see, can go on just as well with or without photos. {Mostly.}

Halloween came and went. This year Samuel was a ninja and Eva was a bunny. They were fabulous costumes, some of our best ever, and the kids had a lot of fun in them, collected a huge amount of candy, and spent the next week or so eating it up. Last night marked the end of Halloween for Samuel, at least, as he ate the last piece of candy that he liked from his bag and gave away what was left of the dregs- those last pieces that linger around but that you have no intention of eating. I have found that I actually like Almond Joy candy bars through this process. You have no idea how many Almond Joys were left over this year!

The kids have been enjoying their clay class and Eva is going to continue ice skating lessons after her current ones end in a few weeks. We went and saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was put on by the Oregon Children's Theatre and we all really enjoyed that. It was a play, not a musical, and very similar to the book. Next weekend we are going to see another telling of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this time a musical, put on by one of the local homeschool resource centers. A friend of ours is going to be an Oompa Loompa and we are very much looking forward to seeing it.

OK. Just a business as usual post but my mind feels lighter and my heart freer. I am looking forward to posting some photos of the past couple of weeks when the time is right.

that unschooling thing

On the knitting front, things are slow moving, but that was sort of the point, wasn't it? Three days of migraines and on the fourth slicing my finger. Seems like as good of a time as any to slow down. And here I thought I had slowed down. More. Slow down more.

So my finger hurts but not as much as yesterday and I can knit, albeit slowly. I am so relieved because I am in the middle of knitting mittens for the kids. Both kids outgrew their mittens from last year. Samuel chose red again and Eva chose white with a black snowflake design in the center. We shall see.

On the video game front, Samuel has not played any of the video game from yesterday all day. Not once. All on his own. Yep- he decided he felt grumpy from playing it all day and took a break. I love it when this trust and unschooling stuff works out in real life. Things sometimes look great in theory and when they turn out, well it can be a thrill in itself. (Although I have to say here that I am parenting the way I do because it feels right, not for any sort of end-product triumph in my kids. My wish for them is that they are able to live the life they choose.) It is that whole trust thing that is really important to live by. Trust yourself. Trust your choices. Trust that all is well. Trust that everything will turn out. Trust.

Today was interesting in a couple of different respects. I sliced my finger while cutting up onions for what will probably be the last tomato sauce of the year. I am planning to freeze it. I went round and round in my head a few times about cutting my finger this badly and realized maybe I needed to slow down a bit. I thought about how I had been irritated by Samuel's whining. I thought about how I had been thinking irritated thoughts about him not taking a break soon enough from his video game, getting some food, taking care of himself. I thought about all of this and how while thinking about it I had cut my finger. Time to slow down. Take a break. Make Samuel some food. Put some of the food back in the refrigerator and work on it tomorrow. Maybe next time, stop chopping onions while my child whines at me. Take it all as a signal to stop, switch gears, connect- with myself, with my son, with right now.

Honestly, what would come of letting the onion go a little longer. Even just tossing the whole thing into the spaghetti and blending it up? or throwing it all into the compost? or putting it back into the produce drawer and simply freezing the tomatoes? Make sauce another day. So many options. So many ideas. Thanks to my sliced finger. But wow it hurts. I tell you this- I won't be doing a lot of chopping onions- or anything- for the next couple of days. It's a good thing I sliced my finger at the very end of the onion. I have enough chopped onion to last me for days!

Oh but gasp I just realized it may get in the way of knitting. Hmmm. I am thinking of cutting this blog entry short to go try out my knitting. There were a couple of more things that happened today, though, one that was particularly related to my cut finger, that I wanted to cover before I stop and go check on my finger's knit-ability.

After I had bandaged the finger, I went back into the kitchen to put some other food projects away. Obviously I had learned they could wait at this point. I put some of the onions in the pan to make the sauce and the rest in the refrigerator. I made Samuel some food. (Sliced a pear. Yep.) And then Samuel came into the kitchen and said- totally unprompted, that when he sits in front of a video game and plays all day he feels really grumpy. Imagine that. I love that he has figured this out and that now he is actually taking a break from playing all on his own. I agreed with him in a matter-of-fact tone, asked if he was still hungry, spent some time smiling at him and connecting before he wandered into the next room again.

And now off I go, wandering into the next room to check on the status of my knitting...

transition

I spent quite a bit of time outside a few days ago doing a little fall clean-up, checking on the new plants in the garden, cutting down so many blackberry vines. Our landlord is coming over tomorrow to sign a new lease and I was hoping to take care of a few things before he comes over for his yearly inspection and it was also a good opportunity to get the yard cleaned up and ready for the leaves to falllll, for the annual raking. This year I am definitely raking the back yard as well as the front and now I can say it is ready. Maple, oak, apple, birch, let the leaves fall where they may.

While outside, Eva and I took some photos of the transitioning yard. I love this time of year for all of the amazing colors, the fall beauty just because, and the contrast between some of the summer flowers still in full bloom and the fall foliage found on the next tree over. It is simply stunning to behold and I am ga ga for Nature's show.







kale and sweet peas thriving, onions sprouting, all evidence that spring will come again, next year...

iceskate guy

I've been a lot on the grumpy side the past couple of days and I thought I could use some help shifting my perspective a bit so I tried out a meditation this morning that I hadn't done in a long while. I do the lovingkindness meditation fairly regularly and I can attest to how well this works for shifting your focus and perspective. This morning, however, I chose to do a meditation focused on compassion.

You can begin by repeating the phrase "May I be free of suffering and pain, may I be filled with peace." After you have warmed up to yourself, feel the compassion opening your heart, you can switch to someone you care about- a good friend or family member- and offer the phrase to them, "May my good friend be free of suffering and pain, may she be filled with peace." You continue with that person until you feel your heart open more and move the phrase back to yourself. You imagine your heart opening further for yourself, offering yourself an open and compassionate heart, a genuine hope that you will be free of suffering, that you will be filled with peace. From there you can continue if you choose to offer compassion to others in your life, moving out to all beings, continuing with the phrase, "May all beings be free from suffering and pain, may all beings be filled with peace."

Later on today when I took Eva to her ice skating lessons, I was having a lapse in my being-filled-with-peace-ness from my meditation earlier. I was irritated with the ice skate guy, the one who gave us our skates and helped me sign in for our lessons. My fuse has been a little shorter lately and it had already been shortened considerably on the way to the lessons.

While I was putting on my skates and feeling irritated with ice skate guy, I decided to try directing a little abbreviated compassion his way to see if I could shift my own irritation a little. So, while I laced up my skates, I thought to myself, "May ice skate guy be free of suffering and pain, may he be filled with peace." After a couple of rounds the kids were ready to go upstairs and Eva was ready to skate.

A little while later, I had to go in and talk with ice skate guy again. There was no one else around in the office and I needed his help with my guest passes. Imagine my surprise to find that he was not nearly as irritating as before. And I don't think he found me to be quite as befuddling as he had earlier either. In fact, he smiled. He gave me new guest passes after I had messed up my other ones. He offered them! The transaction with the guest passes turned out to be a breeze, dare I say pleasant? Well, maybe not pleasant, but surely far from irritating. Amazing really, particularly after my interaction with him earlier and frankly, after all of my other interactions with him over the last three weeks at the ice skating rink.

I am hooked. Convinced. A little compassion definitely goes a long way.