Fabulous Friday

Happily, though this week presented some difficult moments, it's Friday and we've survived (and lived) another week of home schooling. Eager to leave today as open as possible for fun things, I ran my business errands yesterday after the Hub returned home from his work day. In any event, he was grumpy and it's best to leave him to his sulkyness when he gets into a foul mood. I feel good about the discoveries I've made this week with regard to Little One's education. There's a freedom to realizing that, on the path of home education, one does not have to follow a set way but can choose the roads down which to travel. If one direction appears to be more interesting, we can follow that route. Along the way, we might discover other avenues and dirt paths, some just barely trodden, others well worn. And we can ditch the materials that aren't working as well. I'm not very satisfied with the science book we've been using, with it's heavy handed Christian approach that sometimes seems to defy reason. While the book wasn't written with my own spiritual beliefs in mind, I'd decided to try it anyway because it does contain some fun experiments and also does read pretty well (aside from when it attempts to pursuade us that the earth isn't really more than a few hundred years old and that scientists are basically conspiring lies against God). I skip passages such as that, but I think that next year we'll take a different approach altogether. Choice is one of the factors that made home education so attractive in the first place, so why should I utilize a book that has, as it's underlying current, a belief system that doesn't work for me and doesn't represent how I'm raising our child?

This weekend we will join all the many other families attending kids' birthday parties. Such parties are like an initiation into elementary school parenthood. Always, someone seems to be celebrating a birthday! On Saturday, we'll travel to the party of a one year old, while Sunday will see us with the next door neighbors. I suspect that my husband will find a way to disappear from sight after a short while on Sunday. Either that, or he'll join the guys on the back porch for the private cigar smoking party. In any case, the friends throwing the festivities are good ones, and although I generally bemoan having to follow the child party circuit, these ones should be fun. That said, I still hold hope that some time in between now and Sunday, I'm going to have a babysitter secured for a couple of hours.

It's necessary!


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Tarot Meditation

Yesterday morning I began a ritual of meditating, then closing my eyes and selecting a card from my Tarot deck. I have the Caitlin Matthews Celtic Wisdom deck, which I've been working with for quite some time and really love.

This morning, I asked the Goddess to guide me toward inner peace, to help me move away from the chaos of the people currently around me (we have some dysfunctional people in our lives due to my husband's job). I asked her to assist me in becoming a calmer, more peaceful Mom, wife and friend today, to help me to be a more effective part of the whole of life today.

The card above is the card I drew. It's meaning? Contentment, lasting happiness, a peaceful heart and home, tranquility, harmonious order in the environment, blessing, respecting the causes of joy in our lives. Wow, huh? Just what I needed, and I'm grateful.


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Blah

After all of my positive talk yesterday, today I'm filled with self doubt. I wonder if I'm creative enough to be a good home school parent, patient enough to be a good spouse. The day didn't go horribly, but it didn't go screamingly well either. Little one wasn't into the lessons, I didn't feel like I possessed enough patience to weather the drama that resulted from that. To make matters worse, we've had people here off and on due to my husband's work stuff, which further provided distraction. I don't feel sociable today, and I'm trying very hard to work myself into a more positive mood.

Grumble.



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Revelations on Homeschooling

This week (I know that it's only Tuesday, but my mind moves quickly enough to process about four days' worth of information in only two-it's a problem, I know) I came to the realization that we need to incorporate more unschooling into our schooling. I use a curriculum with my daughter, and, for the most part, it works, but lately I've been feeling like a bit more life experience is needed. We belong to a homeschooling group and attend field trips here and there, we belong to a wonderful group that meets once a month, taught by two beautiful, witchy women. I take my daughter to museums and to the movies and to plays and that sort of thing. Still, something has been missing. Somehow, in the push to learn from all of these books, some of the natural flow of life has been lost. It's easy for me to get into the habit of quickly folding clothing and cooking meals and cleaning the house. It takes more time to complete these tasks when my little one is helping me, and so, lots of times, I just do it myself. This week, though, I began changing my thinking with regard to the simple chores that keep the rhythm of our house steady. I began inviting my little one to help me with folding laundry (plenty of that around here), setting the table, preparing meals and tidying her room. Okay, that last thing isn't going so well; somehow the allure of folding laundry is much grander than cleaning her bedroom. One can dream.

I'm finding that, with the Princess in tow, mundane housework is beginning to take on a bit of a glow. I find that we're laughing as we're doing together what I usually tear through as quickly as possible. True, it's only Tuesday night. But I have hope that we're embarking on a new leg of this homeschooling journey, where regular, everyday life projects can become adventures of learning. When I was a young adult, I thought mixing vegetables with ramen noodles was gourmet fare. Aside from special occasions like Christmas (making Christmas cookies with Grandma was always a treat, and I still remember rolling out the dough on her Formica countertop, then carefully decorating each star, stocking, etc.) I was never really invited to participate in kitchen activities. I've learned all of my culinary skills over the past ten or so years, and today I love, love, love cooking. I'm happy to say that I've graduated beyond ramen and can cook french toast without it emerging blackened from the pan. I would be ecstatic for my little one to learn at a much earlier age than I did, and thus be saved from weekly, four day pizza binges and ramen noodles with bagels (I existed largely on these types of food for longer than I care to admit).

Tomorrow is a new day!

Sisterhood

This weekend, I took the plunge and joined the Sisterhood of a local Goddess focused temple. The temple has been around for quite some time, the women involved are knowledgable, fun to be around, creative, and pretty much exactly the kind of women I'd hoped to meet about a year ago when I really began craving the company of other witchy women. Last year, I attended monthly meetings of the Temple sporadically, but the past few months have found me in attendance. The meetings are a wonderful step away from mundane life, and, indeed what I take away (and hopefully what I contribute) carries me through my every day life. Sometimes, just knowing there are like minded individuals out there makes it easier to trudge the happy road. I can remember times in the past when I would enjoy a holiday ritual at home, then hang out with my "muggle" friends and wonder what they'd think if they knew that just a couple of hours before hanging out with them I'd been opening a sacred circle at the altar in my bedroom!

I'm excited and a little nervous with regard to this new path. However, this past Saturday night during a meditation I felt I received an answer to my fears. I truly felt that the Goddess spoke to me as I plumbed the depths of my soul, searching deep down for my truth. I know that the current year will present challenges as my spiritual life becomes more involved, my life in the Pagan rhealm becomes more open (to some people, at least), and I'm called upon to challenge the mainstream ways in which I was raised more and more. On any spiritual path, though, challenges arise. Facing those hurdles and jumping over them (or walking through them, around them, or under them) is what makes us stronger as we grow along the road of our chosen journey. It's part of what gives us the resolve to continue through the more difficult times (such as when your best friend questions why you have a stained glass pentacle sparkling in your kitchen window- this might be a tougher moment than you imagine). For me, challenges also provide opportunity for growth, because they generally send us searching for solutions. I'm happy and excited and ready for the adventure!