i love this season

Autumn is my favorite season. It is of the earth, so grounding. When we studied the Jewish faith when Lala bug was in 3rd grade, I loved the celebrations of fall. It is a time of renewal for many faiths and as someone who is non-religious, but spiritual in nature, the idea of making right my wrongs and re-connecting anew at this particular time of year is...nurturing.

At this time of year, I reflect and meditate on so many things. The past handful of weeks have been challenging ones and have left me thinking about the ways in which I have and have not brought my word of the year, Joy, into my heart, my mind, and my life this year. I have been thinking about what I need to shift in the coming months and asking questions of myself. Where is my life headed? How can I guide that and what should my guiding word be next?

My camera and I are trying to become reacquainted. Along with writing, photography is a simple, creative outlet I have missed.

I am grateful for the tiny pause that taking a photograph gifts to me. 

autumn homeschooling

Writing time is too limited. I miss it. Perhaps I am returning to it. At the very least, I am actually getting better at letting things go, off my task list (rather than saying I should let things go) and I have been getting more, much needed sleep. I had the scary realization that I might be struggling with adrenal fatigue, so I am trying to make sleep a priority for myself.

November has brought a little slow down of external activities and pressures. We are slow to decompress from the busy October and are managing big offloads of emotions, stress, and overload. But slowly, we are moving toward the winter holidays with relaxed, joyful anticipation.

I am saying "no" more and with more peace.

 

 

 Above, the class leading to and preparing for a living history overnight for Lala bug. Below, the beautiful coastline from our campground.

 Halloween! Preparing for and modeling the compost costume Little Brown Mouse made and the knitty kitty dress dada made for Lala bug. She stitched on the ears, tail, and fuzzy white tummy.

 Above, much needed self-learning time for this mamma teacher. I went through three web workshops hosted by waldorfish.com . Wonderful!

 Shouldn't all home learning be as cozy as a living room fort, wood fire, and a rainy day?
Yes! Rain! We have not had enough, so we are celebrating the mini storms that have blown through a couple times now.

And belated, but not abandoned...the annual Grandma, mamma, (grand)daughter art museum outing!

 

It has been a busy autumn so far, but slowing down pleasantly, I have a much better sense of pace for "extras" heading into this holiday time than I did last year.  I am still working on myself, relationships, schedule, and more for re-discovering balance in our everyday. It has been eluding me, and I am...weary.

autumn anchors

Anchors are key to our rhythm. Anchors are the touchstones of our days, our weeks, months, years, seasons. I am always working to better our daily and weekly rhythm, especially as my kids get bigger, but I love the touchstones of the seasons, so they come easily. We all enjoy them and look forward to them. We just enjoyed autumn anchors; picking corn, a celebration of Monarch migration (they over-winter here), and the pumpkin patch.

rhythm is coming

The school year has fully begun now. In our homeschooling, things wind down and gear up slowly. Swimming just ended and soccer, ballet, 4-H, and charter classes have all now begun. I am giving our schedule another week or so (for the last of the first 4-H project meetings to happen), but I am already doing some deep thinking on what we might need to let go of, because we are a bit too busy.

We may just endure it, actually, because this session of charter classes is quite short (and this time, intense), so when it ends, things will likely feel a lot smoother.

Our school year has begun like this:

Lala Bug is in ballet and soccer. She is taking a bookmaking class and a class about one of the historical forts here in California, both through our charter school.

Little Brown Mouse is in soccer. He is taking a class on flight and a social studies/math one about treasures, both through our charter school.

Both kids are enjoying 4-H and are continuing in a local nature restoration  project, are doing a handwork (for charity) project, American Sign Language, and a local natural history project.

This is a lot and is in addition to our home curriculum, but if I organize and plan well, I have every intention of weaving our "extras" in with our core learnings.

We have already finished our first block (some review and geography) and have moved into our next block. For Lala Bug, we are beginning botany (with a lot of math review). For Little Brown Mouse, we are transitioning from fables to math. I am trying to make daily reading a priority with him, too.

Right now, I am participating in a rhythm workshop from Waldorf Essentials. I participated in it a year ago, too, and it was incredibly helpful in helping me establish and natural flow to our scheduled days. I am hoping to reflect a bit more on what we need and what we should let go of. 

the sky

 

 

The sky has been incredible.