5 goals for a new year

(Our winter nature table, so far. We'll continue to add things as we progress along with our semester -- the table was quite full by the end of Autumn.)

I really enjoyed reviewing my goals for 2007 and seeing how far I've come with them in my post yesterday. So much so, that I thought I'd make another set of 5 goals for the coming year (seeing as this is the season for these sorts of things and all), then on December 31, 2008, we can take a peek and see how I did. So here goes, my New Year Resolutions, as it were:

1. Sustainability for our Homestead. This is my #1 farm priority for the coming year, to come up with a sound business type plan for making this place pay for itself. I think the potential is there, I just need to diversify my sheep flock a bit (right now they are great for training dogs and making dog food, but not much else) and tighten up some of my gaping holes of financial loss. I badly want to build a nice big new barn, but at the moment can't even come close to justifying that. Coming up with a way to make that doable is a big item on my table this year.

2. Jump-start my kids' Arts Curriculum. I apparently have some hidden fear of watercolor painting. I mean, how hard can it be, right? You soak the paper, you stroke some color on it, voila, art. But my paints are still sealed, my painting boards still on the shelf under the unopened package of watercolor paper. I'm paralyzed with uncertainty. I just need to DO IT.

3. Do something with our horses. I mean, other than letting them eat us out of house and home (which they are more than happy to do) and pick up after them (have I mentioned that 3 horses poop A LOT. Oh, I have? Hm.). It's very expensive to keep horses, especially a crew like ours with various and assorted medical problems. Which makes me think I really should be doing something with them. Although they do make attractive, warm and furry pasture ornaments. Still, I think, oh, like, RIDING them might be a good idea. Or training that fuzzy little Shetland to pull a cart. Or at least getting the kids up on them and walking them around once in awhile. I mean, you know, more often than once every month or two. If I actually got organized enough about it, I could even offer pony rides occasionally and maybe make a buck or two towards all those piles of feed bills.

4. Cook. And no, I don't mean throw pre-cut cookie dough onto a cookie sheet and toss it in the oven for 12 minutes. I mean the kind of cooking that requires cutting up vegetables and browning meats and simmering things. The kind of cooking that is actually edible, and good for you. The kind of cooking that might just convince my kids (and remind my husband) that meals don't just come out of boxes and paper sacks. And along with both number 1 and 4 on my list, getting back to growing our own foods more. We've got a bit of land and lots of sunshine, surely we can do better at filling our own freezer than we have the last half dozen years or so. We used to be pretty good at that sort of thing pre-kids.

5. Control my Computer habit. I'm off to a great start with that one already, eh?, having wasted a half hour of my life putting together this little compilation of New Year Resolutions. I don't want to stop blogging, or drop all of my Internet support/information lists, or stop emailing with friends (although really, that activity has sort of naturally curtailed itself anyway -- most of the folks I want to keep up with are either blogging, or I see in real life semi-regularly). I don't want to lose touch with my cyber-friends, I just want to stop reading things that suck me into sitting here for an hour or two at a time. Like this. And this. And this, this, and this. And I want to better control WHEN I use the computer. If only I could keep myself from turning it on first thing in the morning, I think my day would start off on more of the right foot. So, a little self control could go a long way towards helping me reach this goal. My biggest fear in life that my children's most profound memory of me will be with a keyboard in front of me.

Happy New Year, everyone! May we all reach our goals for the coming 12 months! And, more importantly, take time to enjoy the scenery along the way.

2007 in review

Hey, look what's going on outside -- yup, you guessed it, ANOTHER ice storm. Mixed with a bit of snow to make it look pretty (and keep the footing a bit less treacherous). Hooray, winter.

To take my mind off of the weather, I thought I would pick up on an idea my friend Kyra (of This Mom fame) mentioned to me. She said that rather than making resolutions for 2008, she's instead taking inventory of all of her progress and success in 2007. I really like that positive spin on the usual year-end traditions, so I'm going to do the same.

(Here's a photo from early in the year, with our then-puppy Yule, who just turned a year old last week!, "helping" the kids play with their dinosaur set. Funny coincidence, Zoo Boy just asked me to pull that set out for them an hour ago and the kids have dinosaurs strewn all over the living room.)

I looked back on my old blog to see if I made any resolutions for 2007, and here's what I found. I thought an easy way to chart my personal progress this year would be to address each of those 5 goals and see what became of them:

1. Simplify. I think I did pretty well with this one. I introduced rest time to our days -- a little mid-day break to rejuvenate mind and body -- to all of our benefits. Because we needed to be home to rest, it meant less running around from place to place, which added to the simplification. I also cut out a lot of activities that I thought just weren't supportive of our overall goals. This is something that got a bit away from me as the year wound down, but something that I think, in general, I made good progress on, and expect I'll continue to progress with as we go along.

2. Live greener. This is an area I really did well with. We kicked our lazy recycling habits into higher gear, and now I'm happy to say that each time we go to the transfer station, we have more items for recycling than we do for the trash bin. I also managed to cut our electricity generation by nearly 35% (wow!!!) this year by switching to fluorescent bulbs and by limiting the running of our air conditioner to just when absolutely necessary (basically from 3pm to 5pm), a pretty huge deal for me, because I hate being hot. I don't think we ran it at night at all this past summer. We're also conserving fuel oil this winter by keeping the house at 65, and turning it back to 62 at night and when we're not home. We've found that allowing the house to get below 62 does not give our furnace/heating system a chance to catch up again, so winds up using more energy by running constantly. We also planted a bunch of CO2 eating plants this fall.

3. Mindfulness. I wanted to feel more present in my daily life with my family. I made a lot of progress in this area. I cut out a lot of MY activities that were detracting from my ability to be there for my family. I have a ways to go with this still (still struggling with my computer addiction), but I do feel fairly accomplished for how far I've come in the past 12 months.

4. Being Nicer. You know, this is going to sound funny, but my biggest progress with this is not worrying so much how nice I am. If my goal had been stated as "self acceptance" rather than "being nicer", I would say that I've been outrageously successful this year. A big part of this was thanks to the Enki Education Workshop called Rousing Intuition that I attended in June. By accepting myself for who I am, and realizing that I truly AM doing my best to be the best human I can possibly be, I feel like I can cut myself a little slack for not being as thoughtful as my sister, or as sweet as my mother. I am who I am, I will continue to try to be the best me I can be, and people will either love me for that or not. And I'm MUCH more OK with that now than I was a year ago.

5. Get Fit. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Given that I'm exactly the same weight I was last year at this time, I guess there's no need to say much more on this one! The good news is that I didn't gain any weight. And my doctor says she's never seen such picture-perfect bloodwork on a woman my age. So I guess whatever I'm doing isn't too detrimental to my health. But I also have to admit that any effort I made towards this goal was half-hearted at best (and even that is a huge exaggeration).

Now, on to a few of the more tangible successes:

We introduced the SOS feeding program to my kids' lives. The progress we made was small and slow, and we haven't done much with SOS lately, nor has it resulted in adding any new food groups to my kids' severely self-limited diets. However, the small successes we did have were significant. They now will try foods that we assure them they very well might like. They are sitting happily at a table full of foods that used to send them screaming for the other room. And they've both discovered that they really like to cook (which perhaps will allow me to cultivate a love -- or at least a non-hatred -- of cooking). We also started working with Oral Motor Therapy (on our own) with Zoo Boy, and have seen a lot of progress with his speech clarity.

But more significant than what we added was what we eliminated. Half way through the year, we "graduated" ourselves from J's RDI program. We dropped formal Sensory Integration Therapy (although we still attend to Sensory Integration needs every day via our Enki Education curriculum). And we stopped prepping teachers and other adults on Autism. By selecting the content and age range of classes and activities we sign J up for, we no longer have to provide strategies and accommodations for him. As far as they know, he's just another kid in their classes, and it's been rare to have to explain any further than that. Not that we keep his Autism a secret by any means -- I'm still as willing as ever to talk with other parents about our experience with Autism and Remediation. It's just not necessary to mention it anymore in order for him to get by in activities with other kids.

On the home front, the most significant construction project of the year was our new playset for the kids. (Shown here on their "first day not back to school" in September.) We also did a lot of fencing in the front part of the property, prompting many neighbors to comment on all the work we did this year. (Same amount of work as always, by the way, just more obvious to those looking in from the outside.)

But the biggest accomplishment of all was hooking up with other like-minded homeschoolers, and really getting rolling with our organized homeschooling. I feel like I've managed to set up a learning-conducive environment and rhythm for my kids, and that they are flourishing in it. And I feel nourished myself, with several friends I see somewhat regularly who truly get where I'm at, and rejoice in our successes and support us in our challenges. Finding and embracing people walking the same path has always been my greatest challenge and biggest frustration. This year I was able to finally feel holistically connected to the community we're trying to build for our kids, by broadening my horizons and looking beyond what's in my own backyard.

It truly was a successful year. And 2008 promises to be even more wonderful!

weekly summary -- holiday break

We were on break this past week, due to the holiday chaos. I've gotten wise enough to NOT try to get anything accomplished after a glut of new toys enters the house! So the kids spent the bulk of the week examining new toys, discovering how they work, building things, experimenting with things, and in general just sinking into play. Here's a photo of our living room, for your amusement. It pretty much looked like that (or even worse) all week, as we just let the kids have a LOT of freedom.

Which worked for me as, you guessed it, we had another ice storm. Mid-week I was out most of the day doing this: shoveling shavings and dirt and sand and anything else that might provide traction in our pens to make sure people and horses were not falling and breaking hips. Fun! (NOT!) But actually, other than being a lot of hard, physical labor, it was not really stressful because I knew the kids were occupied and happy. I just ran in occasionally to check on them, put out some food, etc, then headed back out for more ice-rink improvement.

The kids show off their new Spiderman jammies. Our big news of the week (although he'll no doubt kill me when he's older and realizes I announced this to the world), is that Zoo Boy finally FINALLY pooped in the potty! Once anyway. I have to assume that he'll repeat this performance at some point. Anyone who has kids with Sensory Integration challenges will know what a big deal it is for a kid that basically doesn't feel how their body works to organize themselves enough to accomplish such a task. And anyone that doesn't, well, just imagine still changing diapers on a nearly-5-yr-old and you'll instantly be able to conjure up a bit of sympathy for my situation. He's still beating his brother's mark by about a year and a half, so I guess I shouldn't complain.... (but it's easy to forget that now that J is completely potty trained and has been for about half a year now). The amount of money we've spent on diapers and pull-ups over the past 7 years surely would have put one of them through Harvard....

J shows off one of his ZoobMobile creations, made with the set of Zoobs he'd asked Santa to bring him. He's methodically working his way through the entire set of instructions to build every single model possible. He's impressing me with his ability to work on something very contracting like this, then set it aside and fluidly move on to more expansive pretend play with his brother. It's a really cool and amazing thing to watch! And is what I am MOST grateful for this year -- not only his ability to do this, but the path that has allowed me to understand how amazing this bit of natural development truly is!

I figured since I showed photos of the other two house cats this week, I should put up a photo of Candy Corn, too.

The time I wasn't outdoors preventing law suits and vet bills, or indoors marveling over my kids, I was busy working on the rest of our winter semester. I've been planning a really fun Adventure Circle (which I'll post about as we get rolling with it) to replace our formal Movement Circle, choosing some great folk tales for our Curriculum Stories, and gearing myself up to get going with the painting/art portion of the Enki Education curriculum. I'm looking forward to getting back to our regular homeschooling rhythms starting tomorrow!

PERFECT

They did it!!!! Our beloved New England Patriots finished their regular season with 16 wins, no losses, the first time an NFL team has ever done this. Many personal and team records went along with it, and we all enjoyed watching this very emotion-packed game! On to the playoffs! GO PATS!

(And to anyone else who grew up a New England Sports fan and went through the heartache of the 70s, 80s, and 90s with us, raise your glass up, I'm toasting us all, baby! WE DESERVE YEARS LIKE THIS!!!)

good news, and really great news

First for the good news: Enki Education was featured in the recent edition of The Global Intelligencer as a "well-developed, holistic education model". The author (David Marshak) does a great job of summing up the key components of the Enki model. From now on it's where I'm going to send anyone that asks me what Enki is. I have a fairly good grasp on Enki and how to implement the philosophy in my life, but for some reason I can't for the life of me explain it in any sort of rational way. Thank you, Mr. Marshak, for making it easier for me! Apparently this is the first of a series of two articles on Enki. I'll be sure to link to the 2nd when it comes out as well.

And now for the really great news!! It was just announced that the NFL Network, realizing the importance of and national interest in this upcoming weekend's Patriots-Giants game, is allowing the game to be simulcast by two of the major television networks. Which means we can actually watch the game (Saturday at 8:15 pm EST, in case you live under a rock) at home, together (as opposed to me vacating the premises to join my friends in a bar somewhere), and cheer our team on to the first 16-game undefeated regular season in the history of the NFL.




Life is just TOO darned good!

christmas afternoon

Yesterday I promised that I would post some photos from my parent's house on Christmas Day, so here they are! It's hard getting pictures there, their living room is plenty big enough, but there are just so darned many of us in it, you wind up getting bits and pieces of everyone in each picture. I picked a few of the least cluttered shots to share. Here is Zoo Boy opening a gift early on in the afternoon, one of vast multitudes of never-ending gifts that takes hours and hours to open.

About half-way through the gift-giving, J and Zoo Boy check out one of their gifts, a 3-pack of Pokemon DVDs, adding yet more Poke-gifts to our Poke-mas celebration.






Just a shot to give you some idea of the density of people we're talking about. (Faces obscured to protect the innocent.) It's not that it's a huge family -- really, there are only 14 of us there, that's nothing compared to some families! But for some reason, in the amount of space we're talking about, with a tree taking up about a quarter of the floor space and an enormous pile of presents taking up about half of what's left, then you spread out all the wrapping paper on the floor from that number of gifts....well, it's crowded. And loud. And crazy. And, well, Christmas! My family wouldn't have it any other way.

The boys play with some of their gifts.










Back at home, Linus lies amongst the Poke-mess.

Christmas is over, have no fear.
Let's all up and give a cheer!
Hip hip hooray,
Survived the day!
Now we can rest until next year.

christmas morning

Our tree, Christmas morning, before the kids got to it! We decided not to use any lights on our tree this year in our continued attempt to keep our electric use to a minimum, and to have a greener holiday. We actually don't miss the lights at all, so I'm guessing we won't see them again. Now to figure out how to dispose of them in an ecologically friendly manner....


Kismet, one of our kitties, in front of the kids' stockings. The theme of this Christmas was definitely Pokemon -- obviously Santa knows the boys like them!






Here the kids open their gift from Santa -- as set of Pokemon figures. The looks on their faces says it all. This is NOT what Santa was originally scheduled to bring them, by the way. I'm sure I'll blog more about our last-minute panic later, and about the catalog/internet company that let us down this year, but I do have to say that Santa managed to score big-time with the kids with the gift he DID bring. So let's just leave it at that for now.

The Map Man opens the gift J gave him.










Zoo Boy and the special gift he'd asked Santa for -- an Ugly Doll (named Ice Bat). Don't ask, I can't possibly explain, I certainly don't "get it"! But apparently it's the gift Zoo Boy's always wanted.

And now it's off to my parent's house for Christmas Chaos! If we survive, I'll post photos tomorrow!

I hope everyone out there in blog land is having a wonderful morning!