Samhain

so Samhain/Halloween is upon us....seems the year has flown by once again. where does it go?

and while it's mostly about the costumes and candy for the kids, for me it's time to reflect...on the year past and the year ahead; on things to hold onto and things to let go.  lots of thoughts on this....but they are for another place. so we'll do the trick-or-treat thing and then we'll read the story of Grandfather Deer and leave an apple at the bedside, in the hopes that He'll visit us in our dreams....

our seasonal display -- mostly random treasures (plus my acorn fetish)

quite a few changes around our little patch this last year....B losing his job, us deciding to throw our lot in with dreams and a life lived less for The Man and more for the things we believe in.  (a wonderful post over here about that).

but it's a life off the beaten path....and it can be lonely. like unschooling for grown-ups.

always a cool new leaf to be added

so this turn of the Wheel sees me letting go of old hurts and worn-out arguments....it's an ongoing process because forgetting doesn't come easily for me....

reflections in the early light

and as the ghosts of the old year pass through the thinning veil, into our lives i will invite - self-compassion and creativity; generosity of spirit and Presence of mind...

that the coming year shall fill our lives and those of our family and friends with love and laughter, warmth and sustenance; joy and light....and if some good books and new paints should be on offer, we'd happily invite those as well. ;)

wishing you and yours a blessed Samhain....

so....where've we been?

ah yes....too lazy to upload pictures again....but we've been sorta busy...

walking in the woods...

and we've been painting these really BIG paintings....

*scribble*...by Savannah

*flow*...by Savannah

because any kid with this much confidence in her individuality and personal style....

needs to learn that she deserves to hang onto it.

autumn....

dawn through the trees...Kerncliff

sure i'm a blog-slacker.....no excuses beyond a bit of can't-be-arsed and a lot of navel-gazing as of late...

moving onwards, however...

we had a gorgeous Thanksgiving weekend last weekend....back-to-back turkey fabulousness at Aunty S's and then Aunty B's.....

can we talk about how much i *heart* pumpkin pie? can we extol the virtues of this noble vegetable?  for years i shied away from the idea of a pie made out of pumpkin (ewwwww!) and then one day i was convinced to try a slice. i've been making up for lost time ever since.  i made the pie for my sister's dinner....and brought the leftovers home...and ate 'em for breakfast the next day.

~*~

at some point over the afternoon at Aunty S's, Sebastian picked up an etcha-sketch type doodle-board thingy (what are they called, anyway?) and proceeded to draw some rather spectacular pirates.  this is a child who rarely has shown interest in picking up a crayon and drawing and has caused more than a few faithless moments of doubt in this crazy unschooling path with his disinterest in all things writing-related.  sure, he paints from time to time but not really.... so here he is drawing rather amazing likenesses on this magnetic-filings-metal-tipped-pen thingamy.  which in and of itself was quite delightful. (naturally, i didn't have the camera on hand)

and being the klepto that he is...he needed to take aforementioned board home at the end of the visit.   once home, he wanted to write the letters of the alphabet. at his request i guided his hand for the upper case letters (i figured they'd be the easiest to start with) and of course there were dramatic interpretations a la "letter-yoga" for each one.

and THEN....to my amazement, not only did he start again on his own....forming perfect upper-case letters (no backwards d's or b's or s's)....he did all of the lower-case. perfectly. without us ever having done them before.

wtf?

seriously. all this from spending time going over this crazy alphabet poster he has where we act out a scene from Sesame Street where Prairie Dawn is trying to do the Letter of the Day and Cookie Monster keeps eating the letters (Cookie Monster played by yours truly).

amazing stuff, isn't it?

which of course prompted a vast amount of navel-gazing on this path we've chosen and how although we've made certain sacrifices in terms of income etc. -- this is some kind of amazing thing.....these great leaps of learning...of pursuing natural inclination and curiosity....this utterly innate ability to learn what we need to know  without having to be sat down and drilled and then assessed and measured on how well we know it.

it's so hard sometimes, to keep the faith in the face of so much criticism and disbelief -- usually from well-intentioned people...which makes all the concern and advice that much harder to dismiss.  because it's the lack of quantifiable proof (in the form of grades and test scores) that makes unschooling difficult to explain to people.  most don't do well with the 'just trust them' speech.  *sigh*

but when stuff like this happens....well....it totally rocks. :)

oh, and also...we made cookies.

lovin' this life...

truly.

a tour of the art cave...

this fabulous space was transformed by my genius dad from a sort of non-space -- not really a room, not really an anything -- in between the laundry room and B's office in the basement. Masterminded by my design-on-a-dime mom we added some shelves and a purpose and Hey Presto! -- we have a dedicated art-space. which is great for containing mess and supplies but most of all it gives WORTH to the pursuit of all things Art....

both kids (mostly Savannah) and i spend time in here doing various and assorted things  following a recent and massive decluttering we have moved things around to make more room to work and better use of our shelf space. in the aftermath of this New and Improved space, i felt compelled to add some impromptu signage...

the only Rules of the art cave are -- don't leave your brushes to dry and get crispy and try not to waste paint. but sometimes, you do have extra paint...thusly, you paint on the wall....

deliciously naughty of us, no?

rainy Sunday stroll with Emma

this morning, after gobbling down a bowl of cereal (just for my benefit, i'm quite sure) Savannah jumped on her bike and pedaled like fury (pretty much the usual way she rides her bike) to the mailbox to post her entry into a poetry contest. how cool is that? it was in the autumn issue of chickaDEE magazine....write a scary poem using a minimum of five words from their list for a chance at some Halloween-themed book or other. mostly she just wanted to enter the contest.

her creation goes as follows....

dark fog slithers

through shadow skeletons.

midnight monsters

eat you.

she needed a bit of guidance as to what to do with the list of words she chose and what exactly constitutes a "poem" so i prompted her for a verb here and there but the final arrangement was hers.  she rocks.

retaining wall

today was the first day without rain for quite a stretch.....but the chill of autumn is definitely here.  a brisk wind pinked our cheeks and stung our fingers on our morning dog-walk but still, we stretched it out to the long version having been cooped up for too long.

CAPTURED! -- a snappy dresser, as always, he's not actually facing the television.

it was home to curried pierogies for lunch followed by home-made (from a package :P) cookies for dessert. (an interesting scent-cocktail that!).  afterwards, i fiddled a bit with my manuscript and Savannah retreated to listen to a book on CD. Sebastian is playing math games on the Sesame Street website.

cocooning time is upon us....

....but we're down with that.

about a week ago....

we were at our favourite park......it was still nice and warm then (it's cold and rainy now)...and the Zamboni from the attached arena had gifted a large pile of not-quite-melted snow...

which makes lovely Snand-Goblins (that's a snow-sand combination...just FYI)

it's not often you get to run barefoot through the snow....in t-shirt...without sustaining frostbite.

me? i wandered aimlessly about taking pictures of skeletal leaves...

this is posted as a retrospect....because i was too lazy to upload them earlier. :)