Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Random Ramblings

I feel like you all deserve to get something out of me that is longer than a paragraph and deeper than a puddle. Alas, that would require that I take the time to sit and write out some of my thoughts here. And time is something I don't have a lot of right now. I am either working on something around the house, or avoiding working on it by wasting time reading on the net! Research, I tell myself, for all the plans I have. Except when I end up reading things like this, after reading about shrunken combs and wattles and how they relate to molting and lack of egg laying on chickens. Margaret has been looking pitiful and I wanted to be sure she was OK. She is, and her comb even looked redder and like it had grown a tad this morning. ANYWAY, other than confirming my slippery slope towards crazy chicken lady status, I do learn a lot of important stuff on the web. And it gets me thinking, a lot. Which makes me want to write about it and share my thoughts here. And then, that feels like another thing added to my list and then I have to avoid doing that, too. *sigh*

I also want to share what the girls have been up to. The problem there is that as they grow up and live more and more autonomously, I feel the need to respect their privacy. I did ask E if I could scan in some of her recent drawings to share here and she gave me the OK, so I will do that soon. She has really progressed with her drawing lately. On Saturday, at Studio Night this month, one of the mom's brought her 12 year old daughter, who is a very cool kid. She and E connect very well, despite the age difference. Anyway, this girl is a good artist and is interested in anime and manga, like E is, so she inspired E to try new things in her drawings. It is great that my kids get to hang out with older kids who do not think it is uncool to hang out with younger kids. And my kids do not think anything of hanging out with younger kids either. Some of my favorite friends here have younger and opposite sex kids, who my girls love to play with. I love unschooling!

So, A has been working on learning as much as she can about herbs. She wants to be the village herbalist, she told me the other day. Yesterday, she looked through a book I have (one of mother's books, actually) about herbs, and made a list of all the ones she wanted us to grow here, for our own herbal medicine supply. Next she is going to research whether those plants can be grown here. Then, we are going to place an order for seeds, or make plans to get the plants another way, like the elderberry bush we are going to dig up from my dad's land and bring here in the spring. She also told me that she wants to learn more about how to be a good homemaker. I am going to include her in my work more, now that she is open to learning.

I had some interesting thoughts about purposeful world shrinking, in the name of simple living and prep for the future, vs. deliberate efforts of world expansion, in the name of a full unschooling life, but I will leave that for another post. When I have time...

2 comments:

Tara W. said...

Zeb has been going through a different experience in regards to age - alienating himself from anyone younger and gravitating toward older kids. He doesn't want to hang out with anyone unless they are his age or older. I think it's a maturation thing - as if he's trying to define his growth and change. I'm hoping it's a short-lived change.

Looking forward to your thoughts on shrinking vs expansion. :)

Heather said...

We are getting to the same saying less about the kids personal lives place. I mostly end up posting photos on my blog (kids give me permission) and make brief comments about the awesome educational activities going on via twitter-- which really doesn't give doesn't give nearly as much information about what the kids are actually learning but is all I feel I can say most times.

On the other hand my kids (ages 12, 10, 8) love playing with both older and younger kids-- which I am thrilled about.

My oldest, much to my thrill, started showing interest in herbs and making home remedies (which I love to do) so I am excited to share that with her while I share my love of art with the middle child. Vintage Remedies is a great book as are the Rodale books. As for the art stuff, Usborne Big Book of Art ideas: Things to Draw is AWESOME (and as an artist I tend to avoid "art" and "drawing" books. On the other hand we find that watching lots of Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli) films is great for getting in an artistic frame of mind. :)