Homeschool House Rock

Today marks the day I realized just how vast the homeschooling world really is.

I had dipped my toes. I’d talked to some moms I knew who homeschooled (or wanted to homeschool), I’d followed a homeschool mom on twitter here or there, and I made a list of curriculums that other moms had suggested in my bullet journal (hello fellow millennials), but never had I ever really stuck my head in and had a full look around. Until today. And now I’m a little dizzy.

Even as I’m writing this, I’m wondering what space I’m losing in my head. Do you know what I mean? What used to occupy the spaces that are now crammed full of different books, maps, nature studies, journals, literature, science projects, art, and hands-on programs? Do our brains expand or am I losing something? And what did I used to think about before I started planning out how to raise my kids? Am I losing part of myself?

The short answer is no, of course not. If anything, these new challenges are making me more myself than before because I’m doing what I feel very called to do. When we hear God’s call and respond we are being the best and most fulfilled versions of ourselves, and I know that. But I also know that my memory isn’t what it was before kids (mom brain is a real thing), and sometimes when I look around my house (which could be described as “playful chaos” with a design concept somewhere between “whimsical garage sale” and “various piles”) I feel like I’m not accomplishing anything. Especially if it’s been a rough day parenting. Do not misunderstand, my kids would definitely be known worldwide as the two most wonderful, beautiful, incredible children if there was any way to quantify that, but science has fallen short yet again. That being said, sometimes we’re cranky or we want what we can’t have (sigh) and times are rough. I have a hard time feeling purposeful when I feel like I’m not living up to the goals I’ve set for myself, and this is all the more difficult when the goals I’ve set are vague. And that’s where my recent homeschool research comes into play.

We started “homeschooling” Katie off and on around the time she turned 2. Sometimes I sat her down with flash cards that featured colors and shapes and asked her questions, sometimes we did a craft or an activity to develop small or gross motor skills, sometimes we learned a song. Daily we spent time reading together. Actually, reading together is the thing we’ve been incredibly consistent with, but that’s definitely in part because she demands it. The girl loves a good book. I get it. You get it. Books are the best. We all agree. Anyway, the point is, we’ve been kind of making up things as we go along because we knew we didn’t have to get serious until kindergarten, so we figured we’d just test things out and learn a little about how she learns and what motivates her. All this is great, except now we’re a year (or two?) out and now I feel like I need to get my act together. It’s time to make a legit plan for preschool so we can learn to work together and have a peaceful home-educational experience. It’s time to find our groove and figure out what we need. It’s time to actually research curriculums and decide how we want to do things. And so, ever the millennial, I went on Instagram.

You scoff, but there is a LOT to unpack on the gram. The homeschool community on Instagram is booming. And these moms (and dads) are tagging all the companies, curriculums, Etsy shops, and authors that they use and love. So down the rabbit hole I went, and what I found was at first very overwhelming, and then later, after a few more hours of research, very comforting, encouraging, helpful. The Instagram pictures are curated, sure, but the captions are honest. We’re all just trying our best. And after sorting through all the different suggestions, googling, reading reviews, and really thinking about what’s important to me in terms of my children’s education, I feel like I know what I’m going to do for this next year. What will I do the following year? No idea. I’ve started a collection on Instagram and on Amazon, and I’ll come back to it later. But for this year, I have a solid plan that I think will work for both Katie and me, and moreover, I’m excited to get started.

Why am I sharing all of this? I don’t know. I guess I just felt like it. I haven’t updated this blog in a solid year, so it felt like the thing to do? Plus, where else do I have an outlet for this topic? Besides James, who is going to listen to this whole mess of thoughts? I don’t know. So why not just post it on my old, long-neglected blog? An ideal solution. Anyway, if you made it this far, great! And if you’re a fellow homeschool mom, or you’re thinking about it, but you don’t know where to start, drop me a line and I’ll tell you about the stuff I found that I’m excited to use in my home.

That feels like enough for now.

Alicia

After All This Time: Eggs

So it's been awhile (broken record) and as many of you know, we've had a pretty traumatic time with the birth of our daughter, but that's not what this blog is going to be about. Sure, it would be more interesting for you, that's a given, but it would be way boring for me. I've told the story so. many. times. Seriously. So instead, I'm going to regale you with a topic I find waaaaayyy more exciting: Regency-era Easter egg dying practices.

This is what I did this morning. 

Ok, so in the late 18th, early 19th century (during the life of the notorious Prince Regent, future King George IV) people dyed Easter eggs by hard boiling eggs in water shared with red onion skins. The red symbolized the blood that Jesus shed for the forgiveness of our sins. I tried it this morning and my eggs turned this orange-brown color.

It's possible that onions in England 200 years ago had different color variation, that starting with brown eggs would change the color, or that this was red enough for them to feel satisfied, but either way, this is how mine turned out.

I mainly wanted to try this as a fun, historical activity, but I think in going to do it every time I hard boil eggs. Never again will I have to wonder if an egg is raw or boiled. Onion skins, baby! (New catch phrase)

 

Ok, That's all. Sorry!

Feeling Festive this Fall

Yay alliteration, am I right ladies? 

Ok friends, I did very little crafting this fall because I'm primarily working on stuff for the baby (more about that later), but I did class up some foam pumpkins and make a wreath. Here's what's up:

This is one of three foam pumpkins I got for free a couple years back. Now, if orange is your thing, then this won't make any sense to you, but I wanted prettier pumpkins.

I had two of these three paints already in my collection, I just ran to menards and grabbed a third metallic paint that worked with what I was aiming to do (namely, make my pumpkins pretty)

First I set each pumpkin on its own piece of newspaper in the garage and sprayed the top half. I went back and repeated this for two coats because spray paint is kinda finicky. Then I waited for them to dry all the way.

Then, I basically just stood them on their heads and repeated the process. Easy. 

The end result sits happily on the piano. 

I sprayed some jars while I was at it. The rest of these pictures are just how I set up my fireplace. 

Pumpkin by James, age 6 or 7. 

James bought me this deer head. It may eventually end up in the baby's room, but it'll be in our living room at least through Christmas.

This is the zoomed-out view. A lot of reusing stuff I already had and moving things around. The Hogwarts travel poster on the right side of the mantle is my fave.

Here's our fall wreath. The twig wreath and the burlap ribbon was pretty cheap, and the rest used to live on the blue twig wreath.

Alright, that's our fall decor for the most part. Once we get the baby's room finished, I'll share all the crafting I've done. Expect to see the cutest baby blankets ever. I'm super proud of the quilt I made. So simple, but really special. 

There's No Business Like Show Business!

Wow, there is no business like show business! And while this title is totally a true statement, it has absolutely nothing to do with what this blog entry is about. It's been over a year, so there's really no appropriate way to label this. Obviously I can't just sit here for days trying to fill you in on all the new recipes I've tried/ made up and all the crafty things I've done. It's over! It's lost! If you're seriously concerned, follow me on instagram, I'm way more faithful there. I will include a couple pics in here somewhere so that this isn't a total wash for those of you who only love me for my use of felt, but there's no way to truly make up for lost time.

Alright, so we moved into our house about a year and 2 months ago. Important things that have happened in regard to our house: We refinished the upstairs hardwood floors, we insulated our attic, we put up a fence that we got for free from friends, we got a new water heater, we built gardens, and we painted a bunch of the rooms. Some things we would still like to do that maybe I'll blog about but who knows, I'm super inconsistent: Carpeting the basement, painting more bits of the house/ finishing some rooms, creating storage shelving in the garage and basement, planting more rhubarb.

In our personal lives, my parents have a continued their fight with various cancers. If you want to follow their progress and/or pray for them, look for them on Caring Bridge under Trish Pozarski and Ron Pozarski. They are both better and more consistent writers than I am in addition to also being much much better looking.

My friend Mary lived with us for the last four and a half months or so, which was super fun. We were her summer layover in between Istanbul and Washington DC. She and I took a road trip out to DC where she scouted out her future and together we immersed ourselves in American history. We saw this tour guide we remembered from seven years prior and creeped him out by remembering lots of personal details about him. Sorry Louis Butler of Arlington House, but daaaaaahyummmm do you give a good tour of Robert E. Lee's former residence! We're only human! Mary also made lots of yummy Mediterranean foods and kept me company during the worst of my morning sickness. 

Here's Lady and Sansa. They're both fine. Nothing is new with them, which is probably for the best, actually. I mean, they're dogs and they've already been spayed. Anything new for them at this point is potentially expensive and/or painful. We have a statue of JFK's head that Sansa is  terrified of. I guess that's kinda news?

James and I have passed the three year mark. It feels like we haven't been married that long, but then I think back to our year in Bloomington, IN or even to our apartment in Minnesota, and I realize, yeah, that's about right.

I made this wreath. The felt flowers took several days. I made them while my mom made my wedding album (Her wedding album of my wedding. I'm not making my mom make me stuff. I'm not a monster!). I actually ended up adding more flowers after I took this picture. The wreath is behind James and I in our three year pic, so if you're really curious, enjoy a nice relaxing zoom. I made it after Valentine's day and it'll be up until I made a fall wreath.

I made this out of burlap. I painted the burlap in stripes and then added the happy little bunnies and their yarn pom pom tails. They were later sewn together with a lovely bias tape and strung across the fireplace. I left it up several weeks past Easter because it took a decent amount of work and because bunnies are cute.

Alright, James informs me that it's time to go to Chipotle. Until next time!

Beware of Dog?

Hi friends. I have a lot of projects that are in the works right now, but I finished a super simple project today that I can share. I bought a simple outdoor straw (or something) rug from Ikea and added my own text with stencils and fabric paint. Here's a picture of the finished product. Enjoy!

The Dog Who Steals Pillows

So this morning I woke up with a bit of a migraine. I've cricked my neck a couple if times during the move so now my head is angry. Anyway, I got up at six to make breakfast for James and then I decided to take a quick nap on the couch before I ran my errands, so I grabbed a spare pillow. Here's why I can never actually get in a nap on the couch: (photos taken with snapchat)

She's snoring in the above picture. Intermittently kicking the side/top of my head and snoring.

I finally gave up and decided to blog.

Aaannnnd then there's Sansa. Not only is she stealing the pillow, she brought a snack. Awesome.

As I wrote that last part, Lady shoved the bone Sansa was chewing off the couch and has regained solo control of the pillow. 

Sorry Sansa. I know how you feel.

Wood Floor Revival

Hi friends. So we've had our new home for just over a week and we have the biggest project done. The floors upstairs are refinished and cat free! Here's how we did it:

(Ok, so actually, I said "we" but what I meant was James, my parents, Andy, and Hugh. My ankles swelled up when I was up there for, like, two minutes, so I stayed downstairs and worked on other projects.)

First they removed all the carpet, padding, and strips around the walls. The wood underneath looked like this. Those black stains are cat pee. Apparently the cats that lived here were "prize cats" so I guess that means the whole world is their toilet or something.

James did some research online and talked to a couple guys who had refinished cat destroyed floors and he ended up getting an enzyme called "Urine Off" which is essentially a spray form of a specific type of bacteria that adheres to and eats away all the pet stain. So he sprayed all the spots, covered it up to let it work, and then scraped the enzyme and the stain together from the floor. The above picture shows the floor after that process had been complete.

The next thing to do was sand the floor. James rented a sander from some place up the street and the men used three different grades of sandpaper, starting with the rougher and moving to finer until all the floors were stain free and smooth. James used a hand sander around the edges. As you can see, this step removed the stains leftover after the enzyme. At this point, the cat pee smell was pretty much gone, too, which is excellent.

Last they put down two layers of poly, nice and thick. We've been letting them sit for a few days, but soon it'll be safe to start moving into these rooms. The poly smell has decreased quite a bit in the last couple days, too, which makes living in those rooms all the more enjoyable.

Also, I built a garden on the east side of the house:

The front row is marigolds to hopefully keep away the bunnies, and the back row is vegetables and a couple herbs. Here's hoping they grow!

Alright, have a great rest of the week, I'll update more soon!