Library Monday - the reading club and retro discards....

We used to go the library on Friday's with Aunty S and Cousin M, but the nasty winter weather and then them moving sort of jolted us from our little routine. That and a certain irrational fear of mine -- well, not really irrational because if you were to look at the bulletin board in the library's staff lounge you'd very likely see my picture surrounded by gold stars attached to the Late Fee Fund-Raising *thermometer* that has them breaking ground on the Leavey Wing by next spring. Anyway, I was avoiding those hallowed halls, convinced I had an immense fine to pay on both mine and Savannah's cards and me without the cash just lying around, not to mention the shame and stigma attached to overdue books. Also, add to that, the fact that I seemed to be locked out of the online catalogue, a further suggestion that I was in great peril of owing a third-born child to the public library system.

Anyhoo....I managed to get into my account this morning - having already promised a trip to the kids - and wanted to know the total, in order to steel myself and possibly look around the house for things to flog - to delightedly discover that I only owed $2.40 on my card and 70 cents on Savannah's. Such JOY!!

So off we went...proclaiming, with happy hearts, Monday to be our new Library Day.


Feeling quite flush - and in the spirit of me continually giving money to the library in one form or another - I ransacked the *discard* shelf and unearthed these retro darlings...we are ALL OVER the VHS in this house.....having many cast-offs from older cousins. If only we'd known sooner we could have probably got our hands on Sebastian's favourite Henry's Amazing Animal videos which he was disappointed to find had vacated the shelves....seems they're turfing their VHS collection. And at 50 cents a-piece, we were all too happy to take them off their hands...


And here's our reading pile for the week......Savannah has signed up for the summer reading club - ie. carrot-dangling tactic to coerce children into reading books over the summer when they don't technically have to....:)

Fortunately we are year-round readers-without-obligation and the promise of trinkets after every five books is just the icing on our book-lovin' sundae.....although it will pain me to follow the "rules" and be sure to read one book from the suggested category in each five-book block. For instance, this block we have to read at least one fairytale....you know, like kids can't just read what they want to read.....*sigh* Their hearts are in the right place...bless 'em...And with Savannah on her learning-to-read bender, one hates to cast dispersions on the system....*grin*

And it's thundery and rainy now so it's a perfect afternoon for a snuggle and good book...

Happy Monday, everyone!!

Evidence of Great Frivolity...

As you may or may not know, the summer solstice was traditionally the marker of Midsummer. Now, at Midsummer, the veil between the worlds is thinner....and it's when the Fae come out to play....(think....A Midsummer's Night Dream).

Naturally, we welcome the faery folk around here. We left out gifts of milk and honey...should they come by...

And it seems as if they did.....as suddenly sprouting up, we have a veritable metropolis of Faery meeting places in our garden and on our garden path....

Pretty cool, huh?

In which we are very smug...

Behold!! We took a trip to the bulk food store to stock upon some *stuff*....and we got to use our reuseable cotton bags for the first time. We are diggin' the not-plastic-bagness of these babies....

And we rewarded our wonderfulness with great feasting on wine gums (Sebastian and I) and salt-water taffy (Savannah) as we walked home.....

The magic of camomille tea and Festival Giftage..

A generous handful of camomille flowers brewed for a spell then chilled....strained and applied to my manky eye (courtesy of stray hair from a mad cat Thursday evening at work)....provided cool relief of the itchy and flushed the dastardly strand from underneath my eyelid....

Savannah and B took in the annual Sound of Music festival this weekend and in addition to much musically, carnivally, eating-poutine-on-the-patio-y Joy - they toured the vendor's marketplace and bought me two ab-fab little goodies from the sale bin....

A groovy wall plaque --

And a super-groovy mirror...

So very me.....so very cool

Earth Love and the Summer Solstice...

We celebrated the Summer Solstice in our own quiet fashion.....some candles, some incense and some contemplation of Bigger Things. We transformed our garden fountain and sat cross-legged in a light, misting drizzle (the last, gasp of the Great Gloom) and we chatted about caring for the Earth and how we could do better......and why we need to do better...wishes were cast and promises were made....

Then we sat, bathed in flickering candlelight and the earthy scent of a homemade incense blend, and sent out some Earth Love.....

'Twas a magickal time indeed.....

From the garden...

A few shots from earlier this week...before the Gloom set in....


The sage is flowering....




Savnnah's strawberry plant....all set to ripen....which they did - only to be eaten by *something* during the Gloom when we didn't go out much....

The lemon balm jungle...which has gifted me with some delicious tea...

The fountain -- finally settled in and working on growing some Life around it....

The sun came out again, briefly, yesterday but it rained again last night....here's hoping for some clear skies for our Solstice celebrations....

Have yourself a Shiny one!

In which Savannah is learning to read....

The learning to read saga reached a pinnacle today when I had flashbacks to the learning to ride a two-wheeler saga....desperate, I turned to the Oracle of Google. And found a fabulous and FREE (my favourite flavour) website (Starfall) full of learn-to-read goodness. This, it seems, is Savannah's preferred medium in which to approach this particular task....

And she's getting along swimmingly -- enjoying herself immensely -- and is much more confident. And I am much happier knowing that she isn't relying on my wretched teaching skills to achieve greatness!!

Directing traffic...

A great post by Sunnymama for Conscious Friday.....run, don't walk, your little fingers over there....

Scary School Nightmare

Oh, the places we go....

Savannah announced yesterday that reading is "the most important thing". I tend to agree. Then again, I'm a bit biased as I have an uncontrolled addiction to books. Seriously, an intervention may be required at some point.

So we decided to take a tour of the bookish places in our house...and, it seems, there are many...

Even here... a couple of books squashed between the shelf and printer on our computer desk. No idea why they're there..likely because one of them I was using for an online course and the other two as handy reference guides - the computer desk not being too terribly far from the kitchen...

Then of course there's the one shelf next to the computer....which is stuffed to capacity...overflowing even...

Those 'in-progress'....(I'm on my way out to drink tea and read in the garden when I'm done with this)...

The basket under the TV...it also overfloweth.....

The shelf in *my* space...these volumes are 'in-between shelves' at the moment await the purchase of an additional shelf to complete *my* space (a modest corner of the bedroom for my arting and writing pursuits)

The stack on my side of the bed...reads in-progress and the to-be-read pile...

The shelf in Savannah's room...we divided up the big shelf from the Bat Cave to lessen its load and she claimed some volumes for her own...

The basket beside her bed.....a bit empty-ish now as she's gone off the bedtime story routine...

Ah...the Bat Cave Collection...Sebastian's I Spy books...a perennial favourite

A beloved set borrowed from Cousin K....

The Bat Cave shelf...recently lightened to accomodate another attempt to simplify and organize our obscenely vast toy collection...

Sebastian's box o' books and his favourite reading chair....bucket o' dinosaurs within arms reach should the urge to act out a scene overwhelm him...

Yes, I'd say reading is mighty important....in our little family, anyway...

Breakfast offering....

Having not put anything out for our house Brownie lately...we decided he should have the drip-sized pancake from this morning's batch which, we think you'll agree, it the perfect size for a faery...

En francais, s'il vous plait...

Two of Sebastian's favourite pastimes...eating pretzels and watching movies on the computer.

Today's fare - PC Multi-grain Alphabet pretzels with an episode or three of Zoboomafoo...

Interestingly - or perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the source, he chose to watch in French....

The Kratt brothers sound nothing like themselves when they speak in French....but it makes the cute one even cuter....

How we learn numbery things...

How unschoolers approach simple math and financial transactions....

Step 1: Invite over your BFF

Step 2: Get dressed up

Step 3: Play Fairy-opoly (like Monopoly, only with faeries)

Much hilarity ensued. Learning something was a mere side-effect.

What we do...

We're back.

A few 'cosmetic' changes...a little something to mark the passage of time.

You will notice a change in the blog title....it was Earthenwitch who coined the phrase, as she described Sunday breakfasts with her little family; a time of unhurried cups of tea, of wandering in the garden, of feeding ducks and reading books. She described it as experiencing life..as it happened, rather than how someone else prescribed it. It struck me that this is how we choose to live our life...well, as much as possible, anyway. Combine those thoughts with the realization that it's been about a year since Savannah left school - yessiree, she's a kindergarten drop-out, some questions raised by a caring friend about what exactly is unschooling and the fact that there have been raised eyebrows and puzzled looks surrounding the idea that this removal from school isn't a temporary thing. It's a done deal. Until such time as either one decides they'd like to return....it's over.

Of course there are questions, worries, concerns, panic - how? why? what about...? Hopefully there can be some answers found in the handy-dandy links on the sidebar. And I hope to further populate my list of other blogs with more wonderful unschooling families and the things they get up to.

But for now, a brief synopsis....a glimpse of our little world and what we get up to....after all - this one's all about the pictures.

First, you should know.....that the world is our classroom - there are no walls, no time limits - only our boundless imaginations and the far reaches of the Universe to hold us in.....lots of room to move, there, wouldn't you agree?

We stop to smell the flowers......and we believe that a 'weed' is just a 'weed' because a person didn't plant it there....

We follow our noses and find treasures in the unlikeliest of places....

... indeed, there is Life amidst the decay

We take a bug box out into the woods to look for caterpillars....and if we don't find any...then we look for other things instead.....

...like wild strawberries and red clover tops - yummy things to eat. See? It's best not to depend too much on a plan...you might miss something.

The seats are very comfy in our classroom....they're all over the place and.....

..there's always one with a good view of the.....

....*board*.

"But how do they learn?"

*sigh* Still don't get it? Okay...

We play with books....we are surrounded by books...all kinds of books....and sometimes, we read them....sometimes we just look at them....and sometimes we build fortresses with them...but they are always there...for when we're ready...

We send and receive postcards from all over the world....we wonder about the people and the places and their beautiful lives...(we refer to the aforementioned books when we desire further details - or not.)

We make paper dolls....just because it's fun and art ROCKS our little world...

And then, when we're tired - we take naps....

Life is a journey and we choose the road less travelled....


Walk with us?