Hockey= Busy

Both of my kids are in Hockey. It means we are really busy. Many times we are running from one game to the other or we are split up in two different towns.

Both of our kids can skate well and play hockey well.

 Along with hockey games, there are practices, fund raisers, social activities, parades, volunteering, and much more. 

We have all made some great friends through our hockey teams over the years. It is inevitable because we spend so much time with them and plan our social lives outside of hockey around the hockey schedule, which doesn't leave us with many choices. LOL!

Animation

Austyn has wanted to know how to do more things with the computer. I have set him up to do graphics when he helped create his own rookie card for drag racing. He made his own Birthday Party invitations.

 

I purchased a book on animation for him. It is great! I recommend it! It's called The Klutz Book Of Animation. It is a very visual, step-by-step guide on how to do different types of animation. We focused on stop motion and claymation.

Here are a couple of our creations.

This one we did together. Zoe was the stop motion actress. It suits her well since she likes to change her clothes at least 5 times a day. You will see some mistakes with this video, but it's one of our first.

This is a claymation that Austyn did on his own. I helped him download sounds and add them. We messed up and left one sound out, but it's not too bad for his first one.

The Importance of a Homeschool Group

Recently I did an interview for our local paper. It was nerve racking for me, because I've seen way too many negatively written articles on homeschooling. What she wanted to know about from me was an overview of the homeschool group that I moderate and how many families are joined up. She wanted to know what activities there were and what kind of homeschooling families there are in this area. She wanted to know about resourcefulness and how important it would be to have the support of a local group. 

Groups are very important to us. If I need information on something, there are always parents who can answer within minutes of my online post. Many of the parents get to know the children and the parents and have personal insight as to what things they could share that would be helpful.

Groups provide, support, resources, friendships, socialization, and activities. It takes a village to raise a child and in homeschooling we create our village. This is also why the group that we join needs to a group that we fit in well. If you are Atheist for example, you may not be comfortable attending Christian activities if there is a good deal of religious content being shared in the activities. I am not an Atheist but felt that it was important to have a strong Secular group here. If you don't know what Secular means, it's not catering to any specific group of people. So, a secular group would be open to all people, no matter what they believe. It's more of a general public type of group.

The group I helped to get going again has had many activities. Above is a restaurant tour we had.

 We baked pies and painted.

 We had a Games Day, where we played educational board games. Some activities are well attended and others aren't as much. I find that no matter what it seems to always work out. Sometimes it's nice to only have a few friends there and sometimes it's great to have a crowd. 

 We visited a honey farm.

 We skate, swim, go to the park, and do gymnastics together.

 We share simple things with each other. Here Zoe is learning how to finger knit. I didn't know how to do this. It ended up something that both of my kids did for a long time. HERE is a video to teach you how to finger knit. It's a little different from how we do it, but close. I've noticed that there are different variations on how people do it.

 At our yarn day Austyn learned how to knit. This is something I don't do well. Each parent of a homeschool group has strengths and weaknesses. Kids want to know more than what we can teach them sometimes. Or more than we want to teach them. This is where the group comes in. We share our abilities with other families and they learn something new!

 We had a Halloween Party because we thought that it was a bummer our kids wouldn't experience the party that the other kids have at school. We read a story, did crafts, listened to scary music, had a healthy Halloween snack and just had fun together. 

 Because we have moved so much, we have been in other groups, in other areas. We try to make it to at least one activity with one group each year. They live over an hour away. We attended their Zoo Field Trip. It was great!

I keep in touch with these families online. It was nice to see them again. The turnout to the Zoo trip was huge. I didn't know everyone. There were so many kids! Keeping in contact with other groups enables me to get ideas for our group. The main people from that group keep in contact with me and the group I'm currently am in as well. We share ideas and learn from each other. 

So, it is important to have local support and join a local group that suits your family and it can also be beneficial to keep in touch with other groups outside of your area. Sharing is a big part of homeschooling. I don't know where we'd be today if we had no group.

Nature around the house in Autumn

Over the past few months, we've been experiencing nature less than I want us to. We still have had some good nature experiences. Above is a picture of our crickets. We noticed that in the early fall there are a ton of them, so we kept some in our house for a little while to study them. 

These are the eggs that were laid by a cricket. They never did hatch.

These guys were fighting over sunflower seeds in our garden. We had many Blue Jays fly through and stop to eat. 

I don't believe that these plants are native to Canada, but we planted artichokes to see how they grow. The plant was HUGE!! It looks like a big, prickly, weed. Only it's not picky at all.  Here is a close up of the vegetable you commonly see in your grocery store. 

We learned of a family of mice living under our raised garden beds. Here is one of their holes. Going out to use the compost, I scared them. I heard squeaking and saw them run across the ground. They were so cute and fat! The kids looked all around for them and took close looks at their holes, trails, and poops.

Even if you are like us and haven't been out to the local trails lately, there are always opportunities to see nature, right in your own back yard.

Here are a couple of books that I would love to purchase someday.

Discover Nature Close To Home

Discover Nature Around The House

Looking Back - Why Blog

 Sometimes it's hard to find the time, but I find blogging important. There are obviously more important things, but it's important to me. I learn so much form other Bloggers and know that I have so much to share as well. 

When I took a break from it, I didn't take as many pictures. Here are a few. Above, Zoe and Austyn were taking candies and laying them out on parchment paper to melt in the oven and make an edible serving tray. It didn't work out well, likely because I'm terrible with ovens and baking, but it was fun to try. Zoe seems to be very interested in baking. It's too bad that I'm not a very good baker.

 Austyn became interested in jets for a little while. We looked up jet activities and videos on the internet and learned how they work. He constructed this device using a fan and aluminum foil. It's like a jet because the air is pushed through and is compressed when it is forced to go through a smaller hole. He learned that the area in the middle of the larger area had not as much wind and along the outsides and in the compression chamber the wind was stronger. We talked about the air molecules and what was happening.

 Here is is playing around with light and mirrors. He thought he could figure out how to make a projector, but it didn't work out so well. It is just great that he would try it and see. What a great experiment!

 Zoe loves arts and crafts. I pulled out some good paints and some canvas. She really enjoyed this.

 Austyn isn't as interested in drawing and being a perfectionist he is too critical of himself as he works. This is exactly what happened this day. I talked to him and told him that once he learns to calm his thoughts, he will create great works. Within minutes he started to wipe off the canvas (out of frustration) and found that it was a cool effect that he loved. He keeps this picture in his room because it turned out great and he is so proud of himself. 

 We had some devices around the house that didn't work so great. I took them out and the kids took them apart. They loved this!

Summer has gone, Halloween is gone. I can't believe how time flies.

When blogging and showing pictures and what we have been up to, it may seem to some people like it's just an album. This isn't so. When reading other blogs and people share pictures of what they have been doing, I get ideas. Sometimes the person may not even realize that they are influencing someone else. There are so many great ideas out there. Blogging is important to me because I can share and I can also get ideas for  my own family. I'm giving back, because I'm grateful for others who share with me. This is what this is all about!

I CAN'T TAKE IT... I HAVE TO BLOG...

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be our cat. She can sit up on top of our foyer closet and watch the happenings each day. Does she see the chaos?

I have done two things that are WAY out of character, besides stop blogging. The one thing I did was I didn't keep a promise and the other thing, which is the most amazing thing, because I almost NEVER do it... I made a promise! I don't do promises. After a bunch of spiritual reading a few years ago and the deep thoughts that went along with it, I decided that promises were something I wouldn't do anymore. It's kind of a long story and to be honest I don't remember which author convinced me that promises weren't worth doing (a Tao writer perhaps or Buddhist...) , but suffice to say, I just gave them up.

So what happened is this. I got tired of not being able to keep up with life. There is always house work, homeschooling, preparing for homeschooling, tracking, cleaning up after homeschooling, organizing homeschool group activities, sports, preparing for sports, taking care of equipment, doing laundry, keeping the whole house tidy (inside and out) enough to function, making sure everyone is fed and taken care of... the list goes on. I got tired of hearing how much work I didn't get done for our business in the summer. I expected I'd have more done as well. I felt like I spent all of my computer time blogging and not enough time on business activities. I got tired of the clutter in our house that seemed to only get worse each day.

Honestly, I was just fed up with myself. I just felt like I couldn't keep my head above water. So, I gave up blogging, temporarily. I made myself a promise that I wouldn't blog again until I sold some items online (declutter), got organized (check out the previous post), and finished one project for our business. I did sell a few things, I got organized for a month or so and then fell off track again, and I was only able to get part way through the project for our business.

At first I felt happy not blogging. It was something less to put on my list of things to do... if I had a list that I put that sort of thing on. I felt happy that I'd have time to do other things. It did work for a while and I became focused more on organizing during the day and took less photography of my kids. Usually you would never see me without my camera, but I carry it less often now. I took away what I enjoyed because I felt SO OVERWHELMED!

It seems that I am human. I can only take on so much at one time. Is this a surprise to anyone? Prioritizing means that what I focus as priority becomes the focus and all other things fall short, because I just don't have time. Sure I have help from little hands and strong man hands in my home, but it's not enough. I think from now on I'll focus on homeschooling and organizing and if I get business stuff done on the side great, but if I don't, I'm only one person. I am doing less homeschool group organizing (only once a month at the most other than what is already on the calendar) and staying home more during the day. If we feel like going out we can do last minute things on our own.

I think I'm throwing in the apron. I'm waving the white handkerchief in the air. I think it is time to realize that I can't do EVERYTHING. For some reason, mothers are expected to do just about everything, especially if they are stay-at-home moms. I think we do this to ourselves too. We expect it just as much as anyone else. I tend to get a picture in my head of June Cleaver.

I am no June Cleaver. Are you surprised? Here I sit, at a messy desk, in a messy house, with clutter everywhere, a paper booklet half filled out with schedules and grocery lists and tracking sheets. There is a large calendar clumsily laying across piles of books on this very desk. The beds aren't made, I have laundry to do, but not all is lost because we did have a great homeschooling day. The dishes are done, the fridge is cleaned out and I just took a little typing break to get a kiss and hug from a beautiful little girl who decided to walk over and surprise me out of the blue. I don't feel like this is a bad day at all. I guess that is my point. I can't do it all but when I do enough... that should be enough. I'm tired. Life is busy. We live and need to enjoy life as well. There needs to be balance. I should feel like there is much to do, sure, because there is, but not so much that I'm overwhelmed, unhappy, and not enjoying my time with my family. That seems to be what happens more often then I'd like to admit. In fact... I think I'm pretty much always feeling overwhelmed. Moving every two to three years may have played a part in that feeling. I don't want to feel that way anymore, but I definitely don't want to give up my hobby.

One explanation I do stick with is that chaos happens for at least two years in a new home.. I know this. I've not convinced my husband of this yet, but we have only lived in a house three years at the most before we move again. I guess he doesn't remember well, but I do. I remember finally having what I need to function better and all things having a place. I remember purging until our house was comfortable. I remember everything had a place and things were much easier to put away. I like this house, but it's not fitting my needs right now. There are items I'd like to be able to use, but nowhere to put those things, and there are shelves that we need for at least two rooms of the house. Things are not as they should be to accommodate our busy lives. I know this and I'm working at it the best I can, but it's going to take time and even more work. Trial and error will pay a part, as always. I am determined to get our lives organized in this home and I know that it'll eventually happen, but I'm not giving up blogging... Did you hear that UNIVERSE?! I'M NOT GIVING UP BLOGGING!! WOW... that felt good!!

Organizing, Working, Tracking, Facilitating, and Reading

We are still really busy and I'm not planning on posting much, but I thought I'd share what I've been up to. I've been working on organizing, getting a routine going, getting activities organized and working on our business. It sucks that I have to put this on hold a bit, but sometimes these things are necessary. The picture above isn't the most beautiful, but I thought I'd throw it together quickly for you to see some of the pages I made and shared. If there is interest here, I can share these with you guys as well. Let me know. 

It seemed hard to find what I wanted online, so I took ideas that I likes and altered it to fit our lives. It may be hard to use these sheets if you aren't a similar homeschooling style as us. The Project Tracker is my favourite sheet. It's working out great to help me observe, track, and facilitate future projects.

I'm reading a few books right now. It's been hard to get through my reading. So much of my time and energy is spent on my family. Even at night I read the kids to sleep, so it seems hard to get my reading time in. Here is one book that I am finding very interesting. It's called Project-Based Homeschooling by Lori Pickert.

I'm hoping that taking more time to organize and read that I can get even more on track. I am feeling so much better already. I think sometimes it takes some big changes to bring more harmony into our home. Moving and other big changes that are hard to control can really make it hard to get any sense of harmony back.

I've not been taking as many pictures of the kids, but there are a few projects that we've been working on that are really cool and I'd love to eventually share with you guys. With my project sheet I've been watching and helping to facilitate more projects relating to interests that I see in the kids. Some of the projects that we've ended up doing are pretty amazing! 

No promises on when I can post again, but we'll be back.