Cycles of my year

Warning - I am definitely talking to myself in this post. Sometimes I just need to get these types of thoughts down, and this is now my chosen forum.

I am in a busy cycle again. Saying yes to things that I maybe don't need to say yes to, but also having things that I want to do stack up on top of each other (time wise). I'm at the point where I realize that I've said yes to too many things and start to back off.

It helps me to list out all the things I have going on, to take inventory, so I can realign my activities with my priorities. I do tend to over volunteer - this was how, for so many years as we were moving often, I would get to know people quick enough to have friends before moving yet again. Now that we are settled, I have a bit of a hard time saying no to things I would have otherwise said yes to. I always have this thought in the back of my mind (that sometimes creeps to the front) that tells me I should be doing whatever it is - that I should be giving my time. It is a twinge, and I have to silence it by reminding myself that I do give of my time and more so than so many others.

It seems like my friends are also in a busy phase, yet I want so much to stop and connect - share a meal, watch a movie, hang out and talk. I'm feeling disconnected yet again, but hesitant to ask for their time and also unwilling to figure out the one hour next week we could possibly all have free. I guess I'm feeling a little tired to. Eating as much sugar as I have been isn't helping!

This is the time of year where I realize that I do NEED to come together with other unschoolers to remember who I truly want to be without the outside (and internal) pressures to DO. It has been a very long time since L&L in September and I'm needing that boost that can only be gotten at an unschooling conference. I wish I were allowed to attend the LIFE is Good Unschooling conference at the end of May, it saddens me that my family is specifically excluded yet again. I wish I were able to attend the Good Vibrations conference, but just don't see how I can make that work. I keep thinking I would like to just organize my own unschooling conference, but I just don't see how I would with all the other things I do! I've got the ideas - just need people to carry them out - and the idea of site selection - Ack!

I know the next steps - and I know they will come soon enough. May is always crazy busy - the end of the school year always is (even though we live as if school doesn't exist, we are still very much affected by its schedule).


My list of current involvement - for purposes of taking inventory for myself:

• TLC co-owner/moderator
  
• OSUU owner/moderator/facilitator
  
• Girl Scout Leader (helping girls start Brownie troop, plan Savannah trip, etc - currently meeting about 8 hours/week)
  
• Homeschool Central organizer (and, yes, list owner/co-moderator - there's no such thing as running too many yahoo groups, is there?) (Currently looking into new web presence - wikispot maybe - which will involve lots of learning)
  
• An Daire Academy webmaster (ah, and list co-moderator, hmm)
  
• GUTSgirls.ning site developer
  
• Creative Memories consultant (Currently working on Tessa's huge heritage project and just offered to help Sally learn the software - need to follow up on UU auction)
  
• Team Product Finding Service
  
• Coming of Age Parenting Workshops

Recently finished:

• SU Cookie Manager for the year (well, almost finished)
  
• Event Photographer for Fuzzy Buddy Tea Party - totally fun!
  
• Council Delegate

Currently considering:

• Council Product Sales Team

Recently said no to:

• Women's Retreat Committee
  
• Leading Just Try It classes at Homeschool Central

Wishing I were doing a better job at:

• Welcoming new homeschoolers
  
• OSUU Meetings
  
• Involving the girls in trip planning
  
• Decreasing inventory
  
• Meal planning/execution
  
• Home maintenance projects

Trust Children

"Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult. Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted." --John Holt

Earth Hour

Okay - what am I missing here? I find it ironic that the folks over at www.earthhour.org want us to upload pictures/video or blog during earth hour (which is from 8:30 to 9:30 tonight). Don't the computer, modem, router, etc. use far more electricity than the lights?

Don't get me wrong, I really do believe we need to take action and do what we can to reverse the effects of global warming, I'm just not sure we can do that by using our computers.

My compromise? Blog first, turn EVERYTHING off during.

Who Am I?

Yesterday I started a new social networking site for my life coach so that the GUTS Girls can connect and support each other on a more consistent basis. I just love playing on my computer - I do think it is my favorite possession!

So, in setting up my profile, I needed to answer the question, "Tell us a little about yourself" because I want everyone else on the site to answer that question.

Wow - why is this simple question always so hard to answer? I have my profile blurb that you can see on the right, but is that WHO I AM? Then I have all my roles - so many roles it makes my head spin thinking about them all - unschooling mom, unschooling advocate, homeschooling organizer, master recycler, wife, foster parent for kittens, GS leader and county cookie manager, gay rights advocate, humanist & UU, environmentalist (to some degree anyway), natural birth/nursing advocate, attachment parenting advocate and on and on it goes. You know, I'm also a daughter and a sister and a cousin and a neighbor and a former classmate, and... They are labels and there seems to be this big anti-label thing going on, at least in the unschooling and life coaching communities (more labels, no?).

Am I my roles? My roles really are how others see me, or how I relate with others. But who am I really?

I strive to be authentic. I try to be real with people. I am also working on being more compassionate - I'm usually compassionate, but I do find holes where I could be far more compassionate. I'm working on losing a lot of the judgements that I've always formed - judging isn't me any more, except when it is.

How do I answer this question in a meaningful way? What do people want to know about when they read the answers to that question?

Do I share my values? My values really are who I am at my core, right? And they probably are the most telling. I could also share my preferences. Or I could just say, "I am Joni", but that just doesn't carry the same weight for me as it does for someone like Diana!

So: I am Joyful Wise One. I am an evolving humanist who values joy, connection, growth, respect, comfort, honesty, and authenticity. Service is my primary love language. Among many other things, I am an unschooling mom of two girls, a parenting coach, and a volunteer. I am usually concerned about doing the right thing and am trying hard to be more compassionate in my life.

What do you think? For those of you who know me, does that give an accurate picture of who I am?

An Important Book

I brought the following Goodreads review here because I want people to know about this book:

As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl by John Colapinto

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I didn't find this book to be riveting in the writing style - it can be rather dry and there are parts that drag on a bit. But it is a fascinating true story about identical twin boys who, because of a circumcision gone horribly wrong, are raised as brother and sister.

The ego of Dr. John Money is infuriating and it is frustrating just how he managed to get all these cases of sex reassignment. I find it baffling that all these parents would let their children have these yearly therapy sessions with this nut without oversight, especially when the children were all vocal about not wanting to go and would get more nervous about meeting with the man as they grew older. People - listen to your children!!! They are the experts of themselves!

There are just two other parts that I have to write about. The first is that there seems to be confusion on the part of the author in the difference between gender identity (the gender you perceive yourself to be) and sexual orientation (the gender you are sexually attracted to). The author doesn't seem to understand that these two things are not necessarily related.

The other thing I want to comment on is the underlying belief that all these children have to suffer the taunting of their school peers. Children do NOT have to suffer this kind of cruelty! Do whatever you have to do to keep your children home if society cannot accept them for who they are. Let them develop their sense of self without cruel children telling them they are a freak.

I came away from this book with a strong belief that intersexed children should remain as they were born until they decide that they want to do something about it. But they need the full support of their parents to be able to develop into who they are meant to be without the taunting and teasing of people who think everyone must be the same (well, they can be a boy or a girl, but beyond that the girls all must be the same and the boys must all be the same).

I also came away with a slight fear of "experts". There is something to be said for people who have humility and a more fluid viewpoint. Who can consider actual circumstances rather than always have the "right" answer before even being presented with the case.

While this isn't a parenting book, I chose to place in on my parenting shelf because I feel that it is an important book for parents.


View all my reviews.

No Wonder

As I was uploading my images onto my computer the other day I found a whole slew of pictures that Bekka and her friends took on Feb. 2 - Groundhog's Day. The shadows are long and sharp.

No wonder our winter has been dragging on so severely!

Two Lovely Inauguration Recaps

I keep stumbling across such fabulous works of art. I don't know why I haven't come across any of these artists before the inauguration, but I'm so glad to have found them now.

The first is a wonderful writer who shares her partner's photographs with a very compelling account of the day.

The second is a talented painter/writer who has a fun take on this historic event.

I hope you enjoy them...

Spreading the Love

I saw this over at Ginger's blog (and also at Jean's blog, and followed it back to Tabitha's blog, which is far as I traced it - so I don't know whose original idea this is, but it's a good one!). It sounds like a lot of fun and a great way to connect with others.

Here's the deal:

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me. I will try to make these be about or tailored to those five lucky people. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It’ll be done this year
- You have no clue what it’s going to be.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your blog/journal as well. Please link to your blog so that I can visit and read in case we are new friends.

Philadelphia Bound!

We found out today and we are so excited!

The background:
Over the holidays a lot of the teams dancers decided, for various reasons, that they would not be continuing on a team, which means that the coach has had to scramble to figure out what teams he can put together for worlds. At the beginning of January we got a roster of the reorganized dance teams and Bekka was no longer on the Figure Choreography but now on a new Ceili. Then the new Ceili didn't go, but she's still been going to each and every practice, hoping that she would make it back onto a team so she could go to the world championships in Philadelphia.

At each practice she's filled in for someone who couldn't make it that day for whatever reason. And in the mean time we've been kind of bugging Jim (her instructor/coach) for a final decision so we could make travel arrangements if she is going.

Today after practice Jim called Bekka and me into the hall and told her, "I would like for you to go to the world championships in Philadelphia on both the Figure and the Sr. Ladies Ceili." WOW! We are very surprised. We had been hoping that she would make it back onto the Figure, but had no idea he was considering her for the Ceili. Our Sr. Ladies Ceili is VERY good. This is the team that placed 6th at worlds last year!!

I'm very proud of her - she has been working very hard for this.

Right Here Right Now

This is really funny in that ironic way. On our drive up to Portland a song came on that I've heard probably a hundred times (it's on one of the four CDs that we've had in the car for the last year), but I've never really listened to it before. I'm a lyrics person usually, and these lyrics, "Right here, right now there is no other place I want to be. Right here, right now watching the world wake up from history" caught my consciousness and made me think of the inauguration and all the positive changes that are happening right now.

So I decided that I wanted to share the song ("Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones) with you and thought YouTube would be the most reliable way to do that and what I found was the song set to Obama's campaign. Unfortunately, the video has been removed due to copyright infringement. So, click on this link to listen to or read the lyrics to this song.

Proud to be an American, finally

I've never wanted to fly the flag - ever. There've been many times I've felt like I "should", but I've never wanted to, until yesterday during the inauguration. Of course, I didn't actually have a flag, or a place to hang one, but I finally feel proud to be an American.

I'm just so inspired. Aren't you?

I believe that President Obama has already done more for our country than the last four presidents combined - before he even got to the White House! Even if his agenda gets completely blocked in Washington (which, of course, I hope doesn't happen), he has inspired so many Americans to take action, get involved, and help each other. I really don't think there's anything stopping us now.

Have you seen USAService.org? This is a website set up as a clearing house for service projects anywhere in the US. It was set up for the MLK Day of Service, and it continues to answer President Obama's call to ongoing service to our communities. You can go to the website if you are hosting an event that needs volunteers or go to find something cool to do with your time to help your community. It is a great way to match up projects with the people needed to complete them. This is what I think patriotism is really all about - helping each other and improving our country (not that other patriotism of blowing people up).

It truly feels like a brand new era to me, and I'm so glad to be sharing this journey with my family and friends.

Great Idea - A Year of Living Charitably

Today I found this blog. I got the link from the family off of the TRAVULL Yahoo Group. From the group description, "This is a place for unschoolers to meet virtually and in real life, and share resources and experiences, and also find friends to travel with." The website also provides a data base for unschoolers willing to host other unschooling families.

Anyway, I click over to the blog and she is chronicling their charitable activities throughout the year, what they are doing, what difference it makes and whether it was worth it. This is definitely a blog I want to keep up with this year, especially since so many are feeling so hard hit with job losses, investment losses and the swirling economic uncertainty.

Time Space Continuum or How Come It's Only Sunday?

As free-flowy as our days are, as unscheduled and non-demanding as we keep our time, I still almost always know what day it is and kind of what time it is. Part of that is the things the girls have going on throughout the week - on Monday, Bekka gets together with some friends, on Tuesday, Steffi plays with music with Suz and Bekka tries to go dance at the Celtic Session, on Wednesday we have GS and Bekka teaches private lessons, on Thursday we have Irish Dance classes and Bekka goes to Out & About, on Friday we go to Homeschool Central at the Boys & Girls Club, Saturday is Teams day in Portland, and on Sunday Steffi goes to RE.

These steady activities form the framework of our week and would help me to remember that today is, in fact, Sunday. But a couple of weeks ago everything just stopped (well, except Bekka getting together with friends). I'm sure it is a welcome change for those who are always running around trying to fit in work and school and more activities than we would ever want to try to do in a week. I'm sure they want a total break from all the craziness for just a few weeks. But I don't like it! We like our regular activities - that's why we do them! We like seeing the people we see at these activities - that's another reason we do them. I miss our friends we see through these activities - and it seems like most of them have gone out of town. Sigh.

So sometime about halfway through the day yesterday, I started believing that it was Sunday, not Saturday. Last night I asked Bekka where her friends were meeting "tomorrow" and she said, "you mean the day after tomorrow". "No, today is Sunday," I reply. Both Bekka and Steffi tell me that no, it is Saturday. I had to look at the date on my computer before I could believe them.

Then, as I was waking this morning, I was thinking of the things I need to do today, as if it were Monday. It wasn't until after my shower that I remembered that today is Sunday, not Monday. I guess I just don't do well without the framework! I feel as if I am just floating through time with no grounding. I'm sure I will need more reminders throughout the day to stay in Sunday and not float off to Monday. It is almost an out of body experience.

I guess I'm not as free-flowy as I thought I was. I thought I had come so far from the CPA I once was who kept track of time in six minute increments. Okay, yeah, I have, but I guess I still need the framework to know where, in time, I am.

“What you remember is not what they think you will remember”

I am currently reading “Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral” by Kris Radish. I’m about three quarters of the way through it. I almost didn’t make it past the first chapter – some crazy banter about a woman morning the loss of her favorite bra – but I’m oh so glad I did. Every couple of pages there is an amazing line, or paragraph, or thought, or reflection. It will make for some interesting blogging, I think.

So for today, I’d like to share this from page 14:

Katherine thinks then for just a moment about her mother and she has the same pangs of regret, of missing, of loss, of suffocating sorrow. She allows herself to slip an inch down the wall, humbled even now, all the months, eight of them, following her mother’s death. The grieving, she knows, never ends, and all that will remain is the miracle of love. And she holds on to that miracle as if to save her life for the time it takes her to steady herself, to smell, without the reality of it, her mother’s scent – a fine mix of Dial soap, some ancient Avon product, garlic and Tide – her mother always used Tide.

“What you remember,” Katherine reminds herself, “is not what they think you will remember. It is often not.”

What memories are we making with the people we know right now, today? We usually think about making memories with the big things – the trips to Disneyland or the monumental Thanksgiving feast each year. But when you think about someone close to you, who you’ve lost, what is it you remember about them?

When I think about my mom, who has been dead for over 14 years, it is all the little things that I think about. Bits and pieces of the woman she was.

When we lived in Germany and we would go to church every Sunday, I remember her smelling of White Shoulders when we would get in the car. She would be dressed in some amazing suit and high heels and smell absolutely heavenly. I remember nothing of church itself, can’t even picture it, but I remember what my mom smelled like.

She was my Brownie Girl Scout leader and when I was in third grade we had a sleepover at the scout camp on base. We got to make French toast in the morning. And I remember her teaching us the songs, Annie May and Sweetly Sings the Donkey – getting down on her hands and kicking her feet up behind her like a donkey. She always did all the motions to all the songs – and we sang a lot of them.

When we moved back to the states and went back to the small town she had grown up in, we went into a store and a few minutes later we hear from the back room, “I’d know that laugh anywhere – that has to be Lois!” She was known for her huge smile and hearty laugh. My friends were always saying that I had the nicest mom, and she was. I attribute my evolution in parenting to her excellent example – I didn’t have much to overcome.

I remember eating green grapes together at the lake house while watching the impeachment of Richard Nixon. And I remember Santa bringing me things that my parents couldn’t afford and wouldn’t buy for me. I fully believed until I was 13 and my sisters finally couldn’t stand it anymore and told me. I still believe.

When my sisters went off to college I remember one time when they came home and we were playing charades. My mom got SO embarrassed because while she was pantomiming, my sister yelled “Boobs”. My mom was red for what seemed like hours!

I remember waking to the sound of her sewing machine, the always full of homemade cookies cookie jar, her playing the organ, and singing or humming hymns all the rest of the day on Sunday. Oh, and the amazing craft closet, full of wonderful supplies.

Bekka & Gramma feed the ducks
When I was much older and had Bekka, my mom moved to Spokane and worked as a live in care giver for a woman with MS so she could be closer to Bekka. She LOVED being a Gramma. She would watch Bekka as often as possible, and we would go visit her several times a week. She made Bekka the cutest clothes. She had had her own business custom sewing since she had retired from the bank, and she especially loved making clothes for toddler girls. They were always comfortable (never anything scratchy), and completely easy care. Cute dresses with matching diaper covers and hats were her specialty. Bekka’s first word was “hat” because she always had one, and it always matched what she was wearing.

We moved to Houston three months before she died of ovarian cancer. My sister called to let me know that mom wasn’t doing well and that we should come early for our visit we were planning. She died while Bekka and I were in baggage claim at the Spokane Airport, and I fully believe that she didn’t want us to see her at the end - that she wanted especially Bekka to remember her alive, not dying. When we got to the hospital the nurse was completely distraught. We ended up comforting HER, because she had lost a favored patient. She kept saying, “I can’t believe she’s gone, she was joking with the attendant on the way down to radiation.” Well, I could have told her ahead of time that my mom would go out joking. It was just not in her to be all solemn and depressed. To her way of thinking there was just no point in it. I don’t really remember her memorial service, but I do remember part of her burial, the part where all the little ones were running around laughing and playing. They were the first to throw dirt in the hole and were so happy to do so. It was exactly what she would have wanted and there is no way we could have planned it, it just happened. Joyful children celebrating life.

Other than maybe Santa and the sewing, I don’t think my mom anticipated me remembering any of these things, but they are the things I remember about her most readily. This makes me wonder, “What do I do that my kids will remember most?”

I invite you to list some of the things you remember about your mom in the comments section.

Oh, and I hope you read this post as a joyful post! We do not morn death, rather we celebrate life on this Journey of Joy.

So Many Thoughts...

I have so many thoughts swirling around that aren't quite coming together.

Some how, some time, I'd like to develop the following ideas:
Women's relationships with one another
How we in our society deal with the end of life
People who are such loud voices for certain values, but don't actually follow those values themselves
How unschooling affects all aspects of my life and all of my relationships
What does it really mean to support our children when they are in conflict?
Is it me, or is it them?
Is it reality that I see, or just an illusion?
The Five Love Languages and what difference does it make?
Can I be the person I want to be?
Confidence and courage
Trust
Am I enough?
Longing
How to build community that effectively supports its members
Inclusion, exclusion and is there any way to avoid the trouble these can cause
Forgiveness
What really is "in the best interest of our kids"?
And many more...

So far, the ideas just swirl, not really coming together in the way I want. I'm hopeful that sometime in the new year I will be in a place to develop them well.

You Draw?

Once again, it’s all Caren’s fault. She linked to Draw My Thing in her blog, and now Bekka and I are hooked! I’ve already wasted over 9 hours on the game – conveniently, the website tells you how much time you’ve wasted if you log in, not that you have to log in. I prefer to enter through I’m in Like with You because it gives you a larger screen and more options than the link from Caren’s blog.

In Draw My Thing, you are given a word to draw and the other people try to guess what you’re drawing, like Pictionary. There is also Jigsawce where you collaborate/compete with other players to complete a puzzle, Blockles, which is a competitive Tetris game and several others.

There seem to be no restrictions, so you get a lot of crudity in some of the matches of Draw. When I find a match that has a)people who actually draw (instead of spelling their words out), b)people who are polite, c)people who are smart, and d)people who are not crude and swearing unnecessarily the entire match, I find it very hard to leave. It’s especially fun to go into the same match as Bekka and play. We do not give each other hints or cheat in anyway, nor do we let on that we are in the same actual room. It’s surprising how many of each other’s words we get quickly just from knowing each other so well. The best one so far was "Kermit" - she drew a kind of a frog man and was just about to erase it when I got it.

If you are into these games, let me know so we can play together!

Birthday Celebration on a small scale

For those of you who are following along, Steve and Steffi drove up the coast yesterday and made it home in time for dinner and birthday cake...

They left Sacramento at 6am and got home about 8:30pm. A quick unloading of the car, dinner, cake and ice cream, and presents and that was the end of Steve's very long, very tiring 47th birthday.

We are very glad they made it home safely with all the crazy, crazy weather.

Frozen Morning

We live in Oregon's Central Willamette Valley where it rarely gets below 35 degrees in the winter - at night. Our weather is very moderate, which is one of the reasons we live here. But the entire country seems to be having severe winter weather this week, including us.

Growing up in eastern Washington, I know how to drive in the snow. But, living here we don't have snow tires, the streets aren't plowed and the other drivers aren't experienced in snow driving, so EVERYTHING in canceled for the third time this week. And Steve and Steffi are stuck in Sacramento waiting for a break in the weather so they can continue their trip home from South Texas.

When I woke up this morning the view from the same window as last night was this

Our front yard this morning

Beautiful, isn't it?

Night Wonder

Last night around 1am as I was going to bed, the view out our front window was just so beautiful I decided to try to capture the image... using my tripod and just the available light.

SNOW in the Valley

We got SNOW! We got snow on top of ice, but still, we got snow on Monday.

We didn't have to take Zane and Logan to the train station until Tuesday, so on Monday we went to Phillip's house for an Epic Snowball Fight. I took pictures until I was completely frozen and then stayed inside talking with my friend, Anne the rest of the time...

I love the girls cowering in the middle!


Phillip ready to get Zane with Kayleigh, Bekka and Logan in the background


"Gotcha!"