do you ever wonder…

if you’re doing enough?

Meaning, are we making our unschooling lives full enough that there is no need for curriculum?

After a few months of seemingly nothing really going on in our lives but the daily grind, I wonder if I’m doing enough.  DD spends many of her days online, working on building websites for her *other* worlds (mainly The Warrior series and Naruto), talking on chat pretending to be cats in this Warrior world, and chatting with friends on the website set-up as our homeschool group’s social network.  She found a Paint-like program online and drew some digital pictures on there for her sites and last week I showed her the Paint program on her computer, and she’s been taking pics from the web and altering them and then adding them to Photobucket and sometimes to her websites.  She’s also been making a scrapbook to put her ribbons and awards in from stuff she’s participated in, in the past.

She’s back to her weekly routine of dance and sports.  Dance 3 nights a week (T, W, Th), tennis on Fridays, Nutcracker practice on Sundays and in Nov, golf on Mondays.  She also has co-op on Thurs afternoons.  Other than that, we haven’t been doing much.  Heck, there’s no money to do much more than that.  I used to be the queen of free… I knew what was going on in the area to do that didn’t cost any money or very little but I haven’t kept up on that.  Maybe I just got burnt out.  IDK.  I guess I’ve just been feeling like I haven’t been doing enough facilitating.

We’ve had great ideas of things we want to do, but just haven’t done them.  She’ll get busy doing her thing and I get busy doing mine and we just never get to doing these other things.

I know this is stuff that I can change.  I suppose that I’m just venting my worries so that they don’t overwhelm me.  I’m very visual.  I need to write things down.  I think that writing things out so that I can see them helps me to focus and get back on track.

I’d enjoy feedback.  :)

Introspection & Life

I haven’t been blogging because I’ve been spending too much time in my head. I’m questioning many long-held beliefs and belief systems. I’ve also been dealing with stress induced depression brought on by a drastic change in my job situation. Things have started to normalize on the job issue again and I’ve been taking St. John’s Wort for the mood for about 2 weeks now. I still have some days where I have no energy and feel funky, but who doesn’t.

Our homeschool co-op classes will be starting soon, too. DD will be taking Beginning Writing (she was going to take Earth Sciences but after seeing the outline, I think the speed and style isn’t right for her at this time) and Hobbies For Life. She was a little *IDK* about the writing class but the teacher is a dear friend of mine, she uses a child-led educational approach with her kids, and I told DD that the class would be fun. So, she’s ok with trying it.

Unschooling Conferences 2009 and 2010

• AERO Conference (June 25-28, 2009 Albany, NY)
• The Autodidact Symposium (March 12-14, 2010 Columbia, SC)
• Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference (September 10-12, 2009 San Diego, CA)
• LIFE is Good NW Unschooling Conference (Vancouver, WA… 2010 date TBA)
• The London Unschooling Conference (July 25, 2009 London, England)
• Northeast Unschooling Conference (August 27-30, 2009 Wakefield, Mass)
• Rethinking Education Conference (Sept 4-8, 2009 Westlake, TX)
• Toronto Unschooling Conference (Oct 2-4, 2009 Caledon, Ontario, Canada)
• Unschoolers Gathering of Ohio (U.G.O.) (Sept 24-27, 2009 Columbus, OH)

For Teens:

• Not Back To School Camp

My daughter…

Happy Learn Nothing Day to all of the Unschoolers!

All unschoolers know that there is learning in everything. We all know that we can’t go a day without learning something. I dare you to try it! But we happily celebrate our freedom on Learn Nothing Day… our very own holiday! Yeah! Love to all of the unschoolers out there! Keep rockin the RU lifestyle!

My baby is a teenager!

Last year I posted Dayle’s birth story here on my blog.  Here is the link.

…So, what can I say. This beautiful girl, named after her dad and aunt (my sister), Dayle Lynnette, stormed into my world and my heart and took over. She’s the best kid. Never caused me any fuss. Is fun and quirky and a pure joy to be around (most of the time). Has changed me forever. Is so resilient, she doesn’t seem negatively affected by the time that it took me and her dad to get a life and grow up. I miss the littleness of her toddler years. I miss the silliness of her early childhood years. But I love her years now, she’s fun and quirky and doesn’t need watching all of the time (thank goodness that stage does eventually pass). Instead of her insights being cute like they were when she was little… now, I find many of them profound. That light in her eyes still glows brightly, thank God for her resilience, having been spared from the strangeness and worldliness that goes on in school now-a-days and from many of life’s pains that too many kids are exposed to (I think because both Rick and I are from divorced families, that we worked harder at staying together, even through all of the shit we put each other through). She still loves imagination games and playing with boys, boys seem to be more into her imagination games. She’s taller than me now… just one more person in the house for me to ask for help in reaching things… lol. She loves sports, watching them and playing them. She loves animals and learning about places around the world…

Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Happy Birthing day to me!

Dream of the Ocean

I’ve started a new blog called Dream of the Ocean.

The ocean is my most favorite place in the world. My soul is forever being pulled to go there and I leave a bit of my heart there every time I visit.

If you ever have anything you want to share there, I’d love to post it there for you.

Prayer in Public School

This is for all of my unschooling friends. ;D

Quoting Truth: John Holt

“In a nutshell, people whose lives are hard, boring, painful, meaningless—people who suffer—tend to resent those who seem to suffer less than they do, and will make them suffer if they can. People who feel themselves in chains, with no hope of ever getting them off, want to put chains on everyone else.” —John Holt, Teach Your Own

Using credit to get out of credit card debt

originally posted at A Conscious Life on July 31, 2008

I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. Those 0% APR on Balance Transfer offers that you get in the mail can help you get out of credit card debt BUT you have to be diligent about payments, pay more than you would normally pay per month, and NEVER pay late (even a day late will cause you to lose your 0% APR).

Check out #4 in this article on getting out of credit card debt:

Got Credit Card Debt? Ten Tactics to Use Right Now to Get It Under Control

I have done this a few times. The first time I transfered almost $4,000 from a few cards onto one card, and when that 0% APR time ran out, I moved that balance to another card. Today, I did it again, I’m determined to be out of credit card debt by the end of this 0% APR period. I started this quest to pay off our credit about a year and a half ago and we’re down to almost $1,000 now. As we get my DH’s student loan debt down to a transferable amount, we may transfer his balance to a 0% APR credit card, too. The extra time that the 0% APR period gives is such an advantage to getting the card paid off, without all of those extra fees tacked on to the balance.