It's been so long!  I feel like everyday on the calendar is filled with new things and I am not sure how I feel about it.  I signed Ava up for ballet and I called today to make sure I hadn't missed the first lesson.  The studio was closed and so I left a message with a little "too much information", like "I am in a panic because I think lessons may have started today and I can not find the brochure you gave me...yes, I am one of those mothers, I'm so sorry...please call me!"  Creepy me.

I am still attempting to potty train Ava, but obviously not too diligently because success has been...slow.  I still use pull ups, I am tired of cleaning pee off the floor. Gross, right?  Want to come over?  Yeah, me either.  MDO (Mother's Day Out) is less than 2 weeks away and she is going back whether they like it or not.  They are the whole reason I even started to try training her! Drat those potty training zealots.

I posted an album on Facebook of my canning experience at Clark Gardens but I will post a couple here too.  It's funny, because I am sure pioneer woman would have killed for a Walmart, and I am longing to sow some pioneer oats, or at least take a class.  Whether I actually can anything on my own remains to be seen.

I think everyone is ready for fall, it was such an inviting entrance!

This was one of the fountains at the gardens.  It was raining that morning so everything seemed a bit moody, it was wonderful after weeks and weeks of drought.  Makes for good pictures too!

Just a little pond life

This is Mary, our instructor.  She is Mennonite and my new dear friend.

We canned peach jam and it was wonderful!

She did a pickling class in the afternoon that I did not stay for, so many people can great pickles around here but this was the prep

These were the jars to be put in the bath

There were several peacocks on the property and they just wandered around.  Not afraid of me one bit!

After taking the class, Mary, the instructor, has become a dear friend.  She was raised Amish and became Mennonite.  I am not sure how all that works, but I guess the Mennonites allow electronics because she drives, has a phone and uses internet.  But in every other way she is "plain", and her presence is restful to me.  She knows how to "visit", which I LOVE.  I have a feeling I will be having some very odd entries in the future regarding exposure to local agriculture.  At least very odd for me.  Something about sharing fat chickens.... She offered to make bread with me and we have been sharing recipes...I hope she will be a regular :)

Mary home school's her children and I asked her about her curriculum.  She gave me a resource that I was very excited about.  I have several books on he Charlotte Mason method.  But was not aware of any actual curriculum.  Well guess what Mary uses!  This is the resource she gave me, Queen Homeschool.  So far all of her children have had dyslexia and she gave me this very interesting resource that has worked with her children.  The book The Gift of Dyslexia uses clay to overcome it.  Pretty interesting, I hope someone googles this and has success!

I have also been reading the book One Thousand Gifts.  This book has had an effect on me over the weeks and I am very grateful that a friend asked me to read it with her.  I have been asked to read self help books in the past, and while I have good intentions, it never seems to happen.  This is NOT, by the way, a self help book.  It is just the account of a woman transforming her life through thanksgiving.  I have spent years in 12 step programs being told to make gratitude lists.  This book is about more than just gratitude.  It is a very enlightened read and I highly recommend you get a highlighter, a friend and a cup of coffee.

Right now I am off to listen to Week 1 of Homeschool Boot Camp, yet ANOTHER resource before I pass out....

Used Furniture & Mother Goose

I have spent the last few weeks trying to get changing table drawers out of my living room as we make the switch to more "mature" furniture.  I finally decided to use the dresser mom got me when I was like, 12?  Yes, I still have my bedroom furniture from then!  Wesley said, wow, this is really sturdy and in good shape?  Maybe now he'll get it....

I spent 2 Saturday's ago in the Dallas area looking at resale shops for furniture.  I saw everything from showroom to "this survived a fire".  I stayed in the same vicinity and was pretty impressed.  My taste is, of course, showroom.  My budget, garage sale.  I feel like I got a good mix at these places.

I should probably break this entry up...but I'm not.  So here it goes!

Kiss It Goodbye - 150 N. Main Street, Grapevine (leave Historic District and cross over Northwest HWY, it's on the right)

These were all within a few city blocks driving:
Consignment Heaven - 2901 N. Henderson Ave, Dallas (ask for the Dallas Resale Shopping Guide)
Again Consignment - 2003 Henderson, Dallas
Again & Again - (next door on the corner) 5207 Bonita @ Henderson Ave., Dallas

The Consignment Solution - 1904 Skillman @ Live Oak, Dallas
Lakewood Consignment (across the street) - 1909 Skillman @ Live Oak, Dallas
There is a coffee house tucked down the facing street to your left out of Consignment Solution that had GREAT coffee, also for sale.

Saturday I went to the Arlington Book Fair.  Have I mentioned I am considering homeschooling my kids?  GASP!  I know!  Believe it or not Wesley and I discussed this before we got married, and like many things, I said "Hey yeah sure" because I had no idea what that really meant, and then hoped it might get forgotten. Fast forward almost 10 years, which now seems like 2 minutes, and here we are.  Not forgotten.  But I am a little wiser now.  And I am taking it one year at a time.

Back to the book fair.  I had been researching Charlotte Mason, an 18th century educator, and was interested in her methods.  So I got what I could on Amazon used and started pouring over her work.  When the book fair came around, I saw seminars that actually listed her as part of their presentation, so I decided to stay focused and it was a good idea!  So many curriculums!  That alone would send you back to public school!  After the first class, I settled on My Father's World for Pre-K.  I just wanted something to do with them for 15-20 minutes a day, mostly to get a schedule and not feel like too much time was spent in front of the TV.  Their curriculum, if used all the way through, incorporates:

Classical - Accumulate/Knowledge, Inquisitive/Understand, Wisdom/Confidence & Debate
Charlotte Mason's: Narration, Copy work, Nature Notebooks, Fine Arts/Music Appreciation, Languages, Living Literature,Time Lines/Century Books, direct contact with the bible and short subjects
Unit Studies: Adding knowledge by layers, puzzle bible and history together, fun outings

That seems a bit oversimplified, but I guess you had to be at the workshop!  I really fell in love there.  Now, I know the day to day drone of education.  I have been through it once and my memories are not exactly fond.  I enjoyed project work, creative writing and reading.  I also enjoyed..what was it called, Political Science?  Something like that, American and foreign political history?  Weird huh?  But I really did like it!  So I decided for today, I would focus on what I love.  Books.

So my kids are 3 & 4.  Three and four.  Well, I love to read, so we made our first unofficial trip to the library (outside of the reading program).  Here is where the real story begins.  I love to read.  I do not know a single person on both sides of my family, who does not love to read.  I remember the library and almost every book my mother brought home, if I were to come across it again.  I was armed with a copy of "Honey For A Child's Heart", which is a www.simplycharlottemason.com recommended reference for reading to your child.  They also have an early years book list on the site and dates for other book fairs too.  Normally I would skim these "reference" books because of time, but decided to actually read some chapters.  I was reminded, because I need not be convinced, of the GARGANTUAN importance of books, and reading to your children.

This may seem like a silly thing to blog about, but let me tell you, when you have your FIRST EXPERIENCE with your children, in a way that is even remotely intellectually engaging, the sense of relief is enormous.  It isn't just "changing diapers, stop that, do this, be nice, brush your teeth, if I have to tell you ONE MORE TIME, and on and on..." I had a moment.  Realizing that it has been maybe 35 years since I have sat in a library surrounded by books.  Maybe for you it will be Monster Trucks, who knows.  But I kept fighting back tears, remembering the ONE THING my mother and I never fought about.  And that was books.  Remembering everything she explained to me through the eyes of good literature and illustration.  I would choose a book over a movie, given the time, any day!

We checked out the limit, 20!  Here are a few of the titles:

The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats

Planting A Rainbow, Lois Ehlert

The Runaway Bunny, Margaret Wise Brown

Peter's Chair, Ezra Jack Keats

Mother Goose, If Wishes Were Horses, Illus. by Susan Jeffers

As a side note, we are also starting to teach Samuel to ride a bike, yea, fun?  Not so much.  Eh, it's can't all be Tom Sawyer right?

Little Me Tot School

Woke up early this morning and meant to blog before the little monsters woke up, oh well.  Today is "Little School".  That's what Samuel calls the Pre-K homeschool group we go to 2x a month.  Mother's Day Out is "Big School".  Amazingly, I came to the realization this morning, that Samuel likes school.  Samuel LIKES school.  He likes the reward system, he likes the kids, he likes learning, he likes his teachers...His joy is infectious and I find myself having a momentary lapse in judgement about deciding to homeschool.  The daily daisy petal pick is exhausting and I still have a couple of years to decide.  Little Me is a foot wetter and so far I've been diving in.  At least in a group setting where I get to drink coffee and commiserate with other women about potty training and discipline.  I hung up his 1st AWANA "lesson" that we did together yesterday and something washed over me.

I was quick to scrub it away of course :)  Ok, maybe I helped him a little bit :) But now I look again at that lone little picture and wonder. I will admit right here that one of the MANY reasons (and it is not even in the top 3) I consider homeschool, is because at some point my own experience with public school became excruciating.  I can remember all the hoops my mother went through to accommodate my disinterest in academics.  I was much more excited about entering drawing contests than learning times tables.  I can also vividly remember all the social traps that I continually fell into.  I was not strong in my identity, and it caused me to make many many poor choices.  I don't look back on parochial school with faint melancholy of simpler times, I look back with horror and disgust.  That is NOT what I want for my kids.  On the other hand, my husband, Dudley Do Right, has mostly good memories of school, was popular, ridiculously moral, and well adjusted.  Bottom line, its a decision that will have to be made outside of experience.  Even outside of belief, because many beliefs are born from experience.  I will have to actually look at my children.  Really look at them and be in tune with what they are experiencing positively towards their character and education and endeavor to duplicate that as much as I can.  I will have to gasp, be a grown up.  Alas, it had to happen sometime.  To be continued...indefinitely.