Family Life
I'm taking a little breather from the final sorting of the girl's stuff to share with you this week in homeschooling.
March has been a lovely month for the kids and I as we've settled into a steady late winter routine. In reality though we're experiencing an early spring but I haven't been out too much (the kids have) to take advantage of it. I just can't wrap my head around spring in March. I still have too many projects that I had planned to do indoors this month and once those wrap up I will embrace this next season. At which time we'll probably have a snowstorm!
Some of our learning has been outdoors: hikes and play dates at parks with homeschooling friends, a visit to the farm and backyard science.
Other activities have been indoors: a symphony orchestra concert, setting up marble works (like every other homeschooled kid this week who watched this amazing video), drawing lessons, making crystals using the kit Laurent got for his birthday and Celine sewing. Always Celine sewing.
It was a good week. Most days I really enjoy being home with my kiddos (honestly). But this week I especially felt that way. Enjoying these last days of winter (that are suspiciously warm) before the intense activities of yard clean up, gardening, bike riding, trampoline jumping and everything else that spring holds in store.
Over the past year as I've started to share more about our family's outdoor adventures I've gotten questions from people asking how we do this with our children.
I think the overall vague question of "how do you do this?" can actually be broken down into several questions. Two of them being, "how do you make the time?" And "how to you get multiple family members on board?"
As we have time to articulate our thoughts (we're actually quite busy having adventures and making time to write about having adventures is challenging) we plan to answer these questions fully. Here at FIMBY, our home blog, and ADVENTUREinPROGRESS, our adventure blog and eventually in a book devoted to that very topic, hiking with your family.
But before we ever publish a book with gear lists, menu plans and clothing guidelines we would like to help families get started by addressing a few of the basics, one of which is making the time.
Damien just published a fantastic post on this subject. Time is such an important topic to discuss because if you are wanting to be outdoors more with your family finding the time to do so will be one of the biggest obstacles to overcome.
Damien's post, One Day A Week, explains in some detail our family's experience with setting aside one day a week to be outdoors, all together, for the better part of the day (ie: morning till supper). I plan to follow up on his post with more practical tips from a homemaker's perspective. Let's just say actually getting out the door is the hardest part of the whole adventure. Never mind hiking up the actual mountain!
When I get around to writing that I'll be sure to give you a heads up. But to get you started you can read what Damien has to say about how to make family day a priority.
PS: With this recent "new look" you'll notice at the bottom of the FIMBY main page that you can read the titles of the last 10 posts written at AdventureinProgress.
After a whirlwind month of finding new tenants (not planned), being sick (not planned), winter camping and family visiting (planned) and Laurent's birthday (anticipated but not so much planned) I feel, having turned the corner into March, I can finally breathe deep again. And return, if only for a couple weeks till the next set of family arrives for a visit, to my normal at-home schedule.
But my routine isn't just going back to the way it was, it's changing and moving forward.
I don't usually pick words or themes for my months, creatively or otherwise, but I definitely have a word for this month.
Re-evaluate.
Funny thing is, I had a word for last March also that I arrived at after an equally difficult February (what is it with out-of-control Februaries anyway?). The word for March 2009 was re-group.
This year I'm not just pulling things back together though, I'm re-thinking and making adjustments based on new creative directions we're moving as family.
One of our big projects is the integration of ADVENTUREinPROGRESS and FIMBY. This is an exciting undertaking with far reaching potential if we're able to carry it through to what we've dreamed.
You need not worry about content changing here. I love this little space and love the freedom to share whatever I want about my life, the Fun In My Back Yard. What I'm sharing here won't change but hopefully the audience for this blog will grow and with it the potential for my writing to support our family's endeavors.
In light of this creative undertaking and other goals we hope to accomplish I find myself in a season of re-evaluating. Although this is my word for March I'm sure this process will continue through spring and beyond.
Change takes time.
Specifically here a few things I'm re-evaluating in my life:
- On-line "commitments".
- Our stuff.
- The garden.
I am encouraged by other mommy bloggers who are also thinking about the hours they spend on-line and re-evaluating how to better spend their precious time.
This is a difficult line to walk, especially if you are trying to build a name for yourself as a writer, crafter, photographer - whatever. My own purposes in blogging have moved beyond creative expression, though that remains a large part of it. I have professional goals and using the computer as a tool and connecting with an on-line network of people is an important part of this picture.
For years we've been trying simplify our lives and our belongings but now we want to take it a little further. Last month we tackled our dishes but we still have more to do in our kitchen. Q: If you only use an electric coffee maker (I use a small french press for myself) once every 6 months do you really need to own one?
But the big project for this month is to re-evaluate children's stuff. Clearing out the girl's room so my dad could paint in there was a real eye opener. Right now the goal is to get everyone (ahem Brienne) on board. Then we purge and put back together the room with hopefully a lot less clutter under the bed and in the closet.
With all the other creative work going on in my life right now I've had no desire to plan the garden; whereas I usually have spreadsheets and diagrams started by this time. I'm re-evaluating my gardening goals for this summer and deciding that this will be the year of mostly pretty perennials and I'll rely on our farm share and farmer's markets for our summer produce.
As it was, my harvest from last year was so pitiful I have no strong desire to repeat that failed endeavor. I'll still plant some easy crops like spring peas and summer must-haves like tomatoes but I'm going to mostly enjoy the perennials beds I've built in years past and spend time maintaining instead of building. Building gardens takes a lot of creative energy that I don't have to give this time 'round.
So that's where it's at. After a month of just trying to keep home and hearth together I'm ready this month to move forward in changes; mentally, creatively and spatially.
What changes are you making these days?
