Bliss Beyond Naptime

This Moment - Do You Know the Dragon Man?

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. ~Amanda Soule

Whoops ~ I think I may be breaking some cardinal This Moment rule here by using some words but I haven't had a chance to blog all week and I can't contain myself this Friday! We had such a super lovely Michaelmas celebration yesterday with some friends coming by to share some dragon bread with us. It was a delicious one this year with a splash of puree pumpkin in the dough that made it come out moist and an Autumn-y orange colour (every recipe from the book Baking Bread with Children is a success by the way!).

The Indian Summer Sew Camp is up for sale here. I'll make a bigger kerfuffle over it next week :)

And to quickly wrap this up I made a quick video on how I whipped up that watercolour in our hallway. So simple and the whole family can join in. If they get their clothes on that is.

 

Video notes:

I meant to say "local Waldorf-inspired store" not "local Nelson-inspired store" - that makes no sense! Here's a link to Maplerose - my happiest place on Earth. You can purchase everything I'm using through them. Tell them K-Wow sent ya! :)

Brave New Girls

Though I wasn't 100 percent on board with this idea I have to say the timing was pretty impecable with Craig taking Edie out climbing for the first time. This picture was taken on Sunday and on Monday we introduced the letter "M" during our main lesson. In the continuing story our letter introducing saga the Prince (aka "P") scaled a mountain, got scared (that's when "EEEEE!"s got introduced) and was awarded his second golden star for overcoming his fear. Thank God for the therapeautic effects of Waldorf schooling (mostly for me after seeing these pics) because, yeah, she got up pretty high. Brave little girl.

And look at who else is a brave little girl: I had the great, great pleasure of hearing Kim John Payne speak in Nelson. The talk was on Friday, I stayed overnight at a dear friend's house and was able to attend the Saturday morning workshop on The Soul of Discipline. If you get the chance to attend one of his lectures I highly recommend it - he's so funny, inspiring and his messages are so mindful and important. The talk touched upon the history and different aspects of popular parenting styles and offered some practical strategies as well as the reasons why we might want to consider cutting out some habits such as the "Good job!"s and presenting constant choices to our children who have yet to develop the decision making bits of their brains.

At the intermission I introduced myself to him and he sweetly asked permission to have me talk a bit about my Simplicity Parenting Leader Training and the workshops I will be offering in the spring. So I said that was cool, because, well, once in a while I put out a vlog so how bad can speaking to a gymnasium full of parents be? Well, after my spiel and midway through answering some questions, my whole face started experiencing some major twitching action. Like Smile! pout. Smile! pout. But really fast. Like I had Tourrette's. My ladies who were there told me they didn't notice, which is sweet, but .... yeah.  So I either have to find me some Toastmaster meetings quick or limit myself to only one latte before introducing myself to my mentors! There is, of course, always Botax but that wouldn't be very Backwoodsy of me, would it?

When the Craig's Away...

... the Kwow will play. With her inner water colour artist that is. I have been on a quest to cover up the eye sore of the exposed electrical board since the day we moved in. I finally got around to hanging up a half painted acrylic painting couple of years ago but there it sat, half done, making me whince everytime I walked by it. Like, hundreds of times a day. Not psychically healthy! So with kids in bed, and a giant piece of water colour paper I busted this out in like half and hour.

I was feeling shy about doing this with Craig around and sure enough when he came home his first comment was that it looks like a three year painted it. Surely he's just jealous. So I suggested we have a paint off and the winner gets to hang his or her painting over the gaping feng shui nightmare of an orfice.

My painting guru suggested a different approach. Why not paint one painting together? Wouldn't that be romantic? Once in a while I'll dab some red on his nose and call him my little clown, and he'll giggle like a school girl. With one hand we'll paint, the other we'll feed each other organic bbq chips. And then, in the morning we'll hang up our masterpiece together while the kids clap their hands and we'll kiss.

And just as I was ready to post this  I came across this tutorial on Beautiful Mess sharing five tips to photograph your home. I particularly like the point of taking the photo shoots one room at a time. The side bonus of it forcing you to tidy things up, declutter and then get to 'style' it to your heart's content. Totally works! The last shot of the hallway forced me to throw a load of laundry piled in the middle of the floor straight into the wash. Decluttering the pajamas off the kids came shortly thereafter.

And then, since I've been meaning to do some full on decluttering for a while now, it was also timely to find this excellent article that speaks to the common roadblocks to decluttering  and their underlying core emotional issues. These include:

• I might need this later. That would suck.
• Someone gave this to me. Their feelings might get hurt (sad trombone sounds here).
• I paid good coin for this and it might up in value someday.
• I've had this a really long time. Like, long time.

Though it's techinically a spring cleaning article it's quite timely due to the cooler weather, in these parts anyway, that will call for more time spent indoors and everyone thrives in less clutter spaces. Think of the need to space your carrots to let them grow to their full potential. 

Not to mention a less cluttered house is a more photogenic house and this winter you will probably tire after so many outdoor shots of my kids ridiculously bundeled up to the point of immobility in three feet of snow! Heads up for lots of jammy shots in a hopefully freshly decluttered, cozy abode.

Illiterally So Excited...

I can't type long for today's the day I've been dreaming about ever since I decided I was going to follow the Waldorf process of introducing letters to teach Edie how to read and write. That plus I slept in big time this morning (I totally needed that!).

We've been practicing form drawing the last two weeks; drawing out shapes in the sand, in the air, on each other's backs, in mashed potatoes and into her main lesson book. Today, after our morning chore and walk to the mailbox, I'm going to be sharing a story about Queen Q, Prince P and King K (a far distant relative to Princess K-Wow) and then instruct her to draw them into her main lesson book.

In four weeks we will have gone through twenty of the letters (the remaining letters will be taken on after the holidays) and by the end of the school year she will be reading from her own 'writing'.

Edie said the sweetest thing to me at bedtime a couple of weeks ago; "things are going to look so different to me after I learn how to read." So true, Little Girl! Savour a little longer this magical world of no message in sight but just the task of simply taking it all in.

This Moment - Mary Gold Finger

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. ~Amanda Soule

Vloggin' ~ Birth of an Art Yarn Part III

Here we have the final installment of my spinning a yarn series. Also, I managed to squeeze in a little nod to my Sustainable Wednesday challenge. I forgot to mention I didn't make the shoes. I just felt the need to put my life and ankles at stake by wearing super high metallic red and gold strap on platforms while running around the house screaming "Mommy needs her niddy noddy! Where's Mommy's niddy noddy? Kale, where did you put Mommy's niddy noddy!". Ai, those things made my calf muscles almost permanently cramp up into little balls.

Oooo... speaking of calves and balls, Meatballs got introduced to the lawn sprinkler today! I think that might have been the cutest thing I ever been exposed to. He was totally playing with it! I would have run into the house to grab the camera but I didn't want to miss a second of the cuteness overload and I would have surely broke my neck running across the yard in these silly things and what good would I be to you then?

Remember to leave a link in the comments if you're sporting all sustainable on your blog today or any other Wednesday :) And here's the link to the name list I mention!

 

Plan It K-Wow

When the Craig is away, K-Wow (the new name I'm trying on for fun) gets to play! I came back from my yoga retreat super duper blissed out so I suggested to Craig that he scram for a few days to recharge his Daddy batteries. And so he booked to the hills on an epic climbing/backcountry camping expedition leaving me alone to dive deep into a juicy project because, you know, without his cuteness distracting me Mama K-Wow can get pretty productive!

 

I'm excited to start my training this week to become a Simplicity Parenting Leader  to get certified to offer workshops and coaching in the New Year. To really delve into the possibilities opening up to both me and the world I decided to pull together a business plan. I know, the word business plan makes me sleepy too so I picked up a copy of the Right Brain Business Plan by Jennifer Lee and started this incredibly fun process this weekend.

The process begins with a guided meditation and is followed by journalling and loads of collage making. I forgot how much fun collage making is! I have to say I was pretty blissed out sitting at my new-to-me cutting table complete with cutting mat, rotary cutter and stack of magazines. Flipping, dreaming, gluing and seeing my vision on how I want to make an impact on the world come to visual form was a really empowering experience.

And here it hangs in my Loft Nest Head Quarters where I just have to swivel my nogging to the left like so to keep the big picture in sight. So inspiring! Now I can't stop collaging. Luckily, the next step was to make several mini collages onto index cards to layout the values we hold closest to our hearts.

And from there I had enough time to tip toe through the nest step; pulling together my passion and purpose statement for my Simplicity Parenting coaching endevour:

I'm passionate about slow living and honoring childhood. My purpose is to inspire others to make simple changes to help foster health and well-being in their home environment and beyond.

Hey? Hey!? So now that I've bitten bad by the collage bug can I ask if you can recommend a few magazines you read you think I might like and be able to hack into inspirational pieces afterwards? I'm so out of the magazine getting loop and there's only so much I can do with the mountain shots I cut out of Craig's climbing mags. Alright, we have massive amount of hay coming our way this morning so I better get some green smoothie in me. Hope you get to play with some of your passions and purpose this gorgeous Indian Summer day!

This Moment ~ Clowning Around

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. ~Amanda Soule

 

The School Bus Is Leaving!

That's how Craig's been luring Edie out of bed this week and later when she recounts this to me, she moan's "Why does he keep forgetting I'm being homeschooled?!". Edie's the cute! The first day of Grade One she dressed herself in her fanciest dress and requested I help her out with making this extravagent (for her) up-do. She was so excited about the unfolding of activities and it particularly warmed my cockles how earnestly she dove into the Tuesday morning chore of helping Mama clean the bathroom.

Together we made a weather tree and will be glueing on a new leaf according to what the weather was like on our morning walk before our lessons start...

And then after some yoga and the first chapter of Winnie the Pooh we hit the beach with the intention of making the most out of the last bit of summer heat we have been blessed with. I have to admit a partial ulterior motive was to use this as a form drawing opportunity but...

... seeking out seaweed to make a fairy house with both old and new friends proved to be a just as rich, if not more so, learning experience.

I had to pry Edie away from the beach fun to keep a date with those wooly critters you see up there. We got to hand feed them and then trade eggs for a couple of pounds of their lusciously greasy fiber. We're later going to wash it in the tub outside (I wrote a how to article on this for Rhythm of the Home last year), card it up, and dye it with marigolds from the garden before we introduce knitting with sticks next month.

After our sheep date it was supper time and then Edie proclaimed she was super bummed because we didn't have music lesson as was clearly laid out on our itinerary. So Mama quickly rolled out the Waldorf-inspired karaoke machine and busted out her classic Fame routine; complete with legwarmers, headband and mid-air splits. Anything to keep Mama's little baby from crying! Once Crisis Cry Baby was averted I explained to her that sometimes it's not possible to do all that we want to in one day but the important thing is to fully embrace the fun from what we can squeeze in. Ugh ~ I feel her pain sometimes though! So that's why... I'm going to live forever and I'm going to learn how to fly - HIGH!

Loft Nest Monster

We had plans to go camping this weekend. Unfortunately, the Red Tent goddesses smiled down on me, hard, and I thought it best that I, being major bear bait on Sunday, have the family go on without me while I stay at home and get a few homeschool related tasks put to bed. For example, I wanted to make both Edie and Kale painting smocks that actually fit, firm up our schedule, pour through the many inspiring Waldorf books we have resting on our colour-coded bookshelf (strangely, they all seem to reside in the yellow section!). Plus, I wanted to surprise the kids with an Autumn nature table and fall books nestled in their book basket.

Might I add it was pretty trippy to be in the house all alone for 24 hours? First time in seven years! I survived on smoothies and lattes, netflixs playing various chick flicks on my laptop while I sewed, and loads of talking to myself without the kids thinking I'm trying to engage with them. Unhealthy? Perhaps. But man I got lots done without having to worry about dishes or bedtimes and that crazy lady talking to herself business seemed to have propelled me to work faster and practice my foreign accents.

The peruse through the Waldorf book collection and Donna's curriculum I'm following really got me excited about the rhythm we intend to follow to flow through the task of learning to read, print and exploring math this home school year. We're not going to be adhering to this too rigidly of course but enough so that the structure will be clearly established bringing predictability and progress through the curriculum though allowing flexibility to veer off when this thing called life deems it necessary at times. So far, what I've come up with this is this:

6:00 Mama wakes up; meditates and yogas

6:30 Milk Miss Daisy

7:00 Breakfast is made and served by Dada while Mama gets to work on shop/blog stuff

9:00 Household chores (Monday vaccum, Tuesday laundry, etc)

9:30 Walk to mailbox

10:15 Morning verse then main lesson (form drawing for the first couple of weeks)

11:15 Kids frolic while I get lunch ready

11:45 Drop off Kale to Craig's office so they can hang while Edie and I do Lesson A (recorder for the first bit) together, undisturbed

12:15 Craig and Kale join us back in the house for lunch. After that, Mama tea time, kid quiet time until...

1:30 Read Aloud. I read the kids a chapter from a book while cuddling on the couch. We're going to start off with Winnie the Pooh!

2:00 Lesson B (Handwork - Yippee! For this we are going to learn how to knit. Tomorrow we are off to a friend's sheep farm to see her ewes, score some fleece which we will wash, card, dye, spin and learn to knit from!)

3:00 Closing verse and schools done for the day :)

 

Nerdy enough for ya? I have to admit I've always been the hugest back to school nerd around. Even back in my teens when it was probably more appropriate to call it 'Back to Skipping School'. So one fall schedule, one and a half smocks, two lattes and a green smoothie later, I  thought it best to leave my sweet and crafty loft nest (ooo, Loft Nest Monster! Changing post title now), get some fresh Valley air and hop on my trusty cruiser, Prozac, to take a quick jump in the river.  And brace myself for jumping into this adventure called Grade One! Back to school nerds unite! Do you have some kind of homeschooling plan, or unplan, laid out?