Bloggers in Wonderland

I have recently stumbled down the rabbit hole, (or perhaps through the looking glass) of world-changing, paradigm-shifting, alignment-inducing, enlightenment-producing inspiration; disguised in the form of a handful of sweet and unassuming blogs...

...blogs that are both beautiful and soulful, simultaneously divinely universal and completely personal, a yin and yang of non-threatening and deeply challenging, filled with both meaningful ideals and pretty things (which I must admit a weakness for)...

...and I'm not even quite sure how I got there; but I am certainly glad that I did.

Maybe you can find yourself there too:

Curious Girl

Roots of She

Positively Present

Your Joyologist

I have a feeling that these comfortable winding paths of self discovery and broader human understanding will lead to many others...

I'll keep you posted, you do the same!

Share your favorite places, blogs or otherwise, where you find that daily dose (of beauty, inspiration, self discovery, humor, or whatever else it is that you need a daily dose of) - post it in the comments section below!

Ahem, please?

...and thank you!

Where are my manners?
;)

Love & Light

Happy Birthday my sweet girl!

11 years ago right about now, I was spending the first night of my sweet baby girl's life with her, learning how to be a mother, having nothing but love and a strong will to be a good mother and not a clue in the world as to how to make that happen. Sometimes I still feel just as clueless, and I'm still running on love and willpower, but I have been so incredibly blessed to share this life with such a beautiful human being. Trinity- I can only hope to teach you half of the valuable life lessons that I have learned from you, I'm so lucky to have you for a daughter- I love you!
Happy 11th Birthday my sweet baby girl!


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Whipping Cream and Running Crazy

Despite my most valiant efforts and noble intentions, we have been failing miserably at this whole do nothing project.

I really meant to, and I thought I tried to, do nothing at all this past week.

Well, it seems the harder I try, the bigger we fall!

Today:


We made our own whipped cream for dessert- yummy, low sugar, all natural, organic, and educational!



...and I'd say it was a success!

(home ec, health, math, science)


We learned about healthy food choices and the importance of presentation!


(aka- let's find a way not to open another box of those evil girl scout cookies!)

(nutrition, visual arts, chemistry)

We went to a new food market that had lots of samples (free snacks are fun), and bought organic milk to make our own homemade ice cream, (and cream for making whipped cream and butter!), and veggies and salt for our fermenting party coming up this Tuesday!

(economics, home ec, science, math, social studies)

There was a patio demolition that took place in our back yard this afternoon. (my part was staying out of the way with the girls and then directing while the hubs backed the trailer into the driveway) He says I'm good at directing. ;)

(architecture, business management, safety)

We all watched a supercross race together (sort of;), and had some of the yummy farmers market tamales for dinner (with lots of fixins that the girls helped with)!

(phys ed, economics, home ec)

Yesterday, the girls played with barbies in the 'swimming pool', :( i didnt get a pic, and painted pictures 'inspired by' the new flowers blooming in the front yard.



(p.e., drama, art)

We've also been:


Writing letters to pen pals.
(language arts, communications)




Prepping and planting a backyard garden.
(biology, economics, agriculture)

Man, these girls are advanced! ;)

And, we are still remodeling the house. This week, the hall bath got new floors, paint, baseboards, and a new vanity! Here's a nice picture of our toilet:



Way to go hubs!

All this trying to do nothing is wearing me out!



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Rainbow Libra Love

I've recently realized that my favorite color is rainbow...



...how's that for typical libra indecisiveness?

Perhaps it's not an inability to decide on just one thing, but rather a deep desire to have it all???
;)

Thanks V for my beautiful hoops!


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Something About Nothing

I have big plans to do absolutely nothing tomorrow, all day long.

Yeah, I have to make a plan to do nothing. Don't judge.

This last week or so has been a whirlwind of family, friends, and tons of fun... and I am whupped!

Anyone who has this idea that we unschoolers are just laying around playing video games all day every day, is just completely uninformed!

...Or maybe I'm just doing this all wrong?

Not that we can't (because we can if we want to), or not that we don't (because sometimes we do), CHOOSE to do 'nothing' all day, (and when I say 'nothing', that still usually doesn't equate to 'nothing' in any 'normal' sense of the word 'nothing'), but only other unschoolers would really know what I mean with all that 'nothing'-ness up there...
I digress.

If you happen to still be reading this, and happen to NOT be a fellow unschooler, and happen to want to try to wrap your brain around what all that 'nothing' was about...
Try clicking HERE.

Anyway...
The point is, even I didn't really get how much 'something' we are doing around here all the time; but keeping this blog is really helping me realize that I've been calling a whole lotta 'something', 'nothing', for WAY too long.

For example, when my parents call and ask what we've been up to, i used to just throw out the default 'nothing', (aka: 'nothing much' 'nothing new' 'not much')...

WHAT??? Really???

AS IF!!!
...Right?

On any given day, there are so many 'somethings' going on in our home and lives, (both external visible active somethings, and deeper subtler quieter somethings), and there's so much of those 'somethings' going on in any given week, that I usually don't have the time or energy to document it for ourselves, our supporters, (or our naysayers), to see what we're REALLY up to; and there just aren't enough words in existence to ever truly express all those amazing quieter subtler somethings that I am so blessed to witness every day of my children's lives.

But what an injustice that little 'nothing' has been all these years- to me, to my kids, to the people who care enough to ask what we're up to, and to the reputations of fellow unschoolers everywhere!

I mean, If we don't give ourselves credit for all the amazing 'somethings' going on in our lives every day, then why would we expect anyone else to see it?

The Challenge:
Never say 'Nothing' again!

What about you, do you have the 'nothing' default?

Do you give yourself and your kids proper credit for all the amazing things you're doing and learning every day?
(even when it looks to the rest of the world like you're doing 'nothing' all day?)

Do you take the time and energy to share the truth of this amazing life with people who might not get it or agree with it?

I think it's high time we did!

...now, how to find the time to document, the words to define, or the brain space to remember all that 'Something'!

Here are just some of our most recent 'somethings':






Lady J writing (drawing) and mailing a 'letter' to Blue and Steve of Blue's Clues, (she doesn't like the taste of envelopes)






Miss T developing her own temporary tattoo business as a fundraiser to stop kill shelters for homeless animals






Trying out a new Asian restaurant, and totally loving it! (chopsticks and all)






Girl Scout Adventures: a midweek field trip to The Women's Museum and a project passport trip around the world (which included some yummy homemade exotic foods)!




Playdates and parties with awesome fellow unschooling friends!



Honing our hOOping skillz and deepening our Hoop Love! <3






Spending an entire week with some of our favorite people in the whole world, cuddling with a sweet baby, touring a farm, going to the Lego store, and so much more!






Learning about, and trying, different foods from different cultures.
1. Farmers market bounty
2&3. Mexican Palletta (ice cream, we know this now, and also that if you order melon, don't expect watermelon because you'll get cantaloupe)
4. Sushi lunch date with my Little Lady J, who wound up eating all of my crunchy roll (even after that face) because she loved the 'baby fish eggs' on top. (I kept trying to get her to call it roe, or at least leave out the word babies, but she didn't seem to have a moral issue with it!)






...more fun with food!
1. Gluten free chocolate pancakes made with friends
2. Homemade Mardi Gras King Cake (made by friends, enjoyed by us) for our Fat Tuesday Party
3. Smiley Face Sprinkles discovered on a Starbucks cake pop (cake pops are so good they even make themselves happy;)
4. Delicious dessert made by Miss T with chocolate bread from the farmers market






Special just us girls time together, learning to love and care for ourselves






And of course some good old fashioned family time at the pet store and the park...

...no turtles pace for this unschooling family!

(and all of this is just in the month of March, so far, and this just barely skims the surface of what we've done, and really doesn't even touch on all we've learned, and how we've grown, or how we've felt, or fueled our interests, or discovered things about ourselves, or each other, or life in general)

Do me a favor, try to do nothing for a whole day; and more importantly, try to learn nothing.

Let me know how it turns out! ;)


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Love Notes from the Universe

Did you ever have one of those days where you felt like the whole universe was conspiring to make you feel abundantly blessed and excessively happy?

Today was that kind of day.







Starting with a solo trip to the farmers market at white rock lake, which felt anything but lonely because of the warm, friendly, neighborhood vibe of the market and the people there.







So many cool vendors, selling everything from refurbished vintage bikes, to adorable handmade clothes and jewelry, to repurposed plastic ray guns and rocket packs!







Oh, and you can find beautiful real food there too! (assuming you can peel yourself away from the artists tables)

Everyone i encountered was friendly, and kind, and interesting, and encouraging and inspiring.
It was all so uplifting.

Maybe it was just the Farmers Market Effect, but the rest of the day was just as pleasant, if not more so.

I stopped at the nursery on my way home from the market, and found heirloom tomatoes and pole beans!

Just a week ago, I asked about heirloom varieties and genetically modified seeds at this very same nursery, and the woman looked at me like I had a nipple growing out of my forehead, and then screamed over her shoulder for "EARRRL!", like she was calling the bouncer to throw me out for breaking the rules.

Today, they had a whole table of heirloom veggies, so I bought one of each! (I hope my friends like tomatoes)

Add to that the fact that after my near miss with EARL last week, I came straight home and ordered heirloom seeds from two different etsy stores; but for some reason, still haven't gotten them. :(

So I was talking to my dad on my drive home from the market, about his freshly flooded tomato plants, and my impatience with waiting for seeds, and how I wished I had ordered sooner bc I really needed to start them weeks ago, etc...

Well, since he clearly wasn't done talking, and my sister was calling on the other line, I figured i needed more phone time, so decided to pull in to the nursery and just tool around for a while.
...and I found heirloom tomato plants, already started for me.
Wink wink universe! ;)

Then I came home to my girls happily playing with barbies and littlest pet shops in the grass, my hubby happily washing and tweaking his new bike, birds singing, sun shining, soft breeze blowing...

There was so many things, too many little details to even be able to express, but today felt like a really warm hug.

Thanks universe!






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Hooping at the Park, Hooping after dark...

I like to Hoop both here and there, I like to Hoop most anywhere.

I do so like to Hula Hoop.
I do, I like it, and that's the scoop!








I have to admit, I didn't jump head first on the hooping bandwagon in the beginning.

For one thing, I'm kind of categorically opposed to being a sheep. And it was the 'new' thing, and everybody was jumping in and acting like they single handedly brought back the humble hula hoop. I found it annoying and would just vomit slightly in my mouth every time I saw someone else mention it on Facebook.

I'm just not the person to jump in and do something just because that's what everyone else is doing. I mean, I'm an unschooler for goodness sake. I'm clearly not into the whole 'if all your friends were jumping off a bridge' (public school, ahem) mentality.
(excuse me, I must be coming down with something) ;D

For example:
I even refused to buy into the whole insane cult girl world of LPS, (that's Littlest Pet Shops for the layperson), that is, until I saw how intensely into it both of my girls were. (Thanks to gifts from their aunts and grandmas, who were smart enough to just listen to the kids when they said they wanted them.)

I, on the other hand, was determined to reveal the evils of cheap plastic toys from china and mass marketing campaigns, to convince my girls to be above it all.

Ok, saying it now, of course I realize how ridiculous those expectations were, but at least I can say I shared my honest thoughts, gave them the real information about the consequences of our choices as consumers, and maybe somewhat illuminated the sly tactics of media and marketing.

Yeah, I know. I said 'maybe'!

And I can also say that I was open-minded enough to notice how amazing these ugly little things were for my kids hearts and minds, and now I even have a few favorite LPS's. I love them and think they're adorable, and at one point memorized the names of more than fifty of them, and was quizzed repeatedly (against my will) by miss T until I had them all right!

(I even handmade a t-shirt patch of Lady JaJa's favorite kitty...








...And am working on a peacock for Miss T)

The point is, I'm not a blind follower, but I'm not just a rebel without a cause either. I'm still open-minded and balanced enough to recognize a good thing... Eventually. ;)

So... at first, I didn't jump on the Hoop Craze, well, because everyone else was doing it.

But perhaps more importantly, it's not much fun when you feel like a completely spastic hooping robot!
I mean, there are only so many ways to play it off when you just smacked yourself in the teeth with your hula hoop! (again)

But still, there was always something about hooping that appealed to me on a deeper level.

It's simple, it's retro, it's timeless.
It requires no batteries.

Not to mention, the hoops are all so bright and beautiful!

What can I say, I like vintage, and I like pretty.

Hooping is a classic, and that appeals to me.

So after being dragged to a couple hooping classes and hoop jams by a friend, and actually learning a couple tricks, (and how to smack myself in the teeth much less often), I have to admit...

Hooping is a good thing!
(even if everyone else is doing it)

So now we can be seen most days, (and nights), out in our yard hooping. Or out at some park with gaggles of unschooling moms and kids. Sometimes even at midnight on Mardi Gras, disturbing the neighbors, with our awesome new friends! ;)

Hey, I can admit when I'm wrong!
(just don't tell my husband) ;)


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Phat Tuesday

Tuesday was Mardi Gras!

AKA- Fat Tuesday

But ours was a Phat Tuesday.

P.H.A.T. Phat.

Being from south Louisiana, right outside of New Orleans, if I don't celebrate Mardi Gras, I might get disowned, or banned from the state!

So we planned a cajun style feast with some friends, and threw our own little party.

Our friends were participating in some kind of promo thing from Zatarains, so they had all kinds of boxed foods and recipes to try- jambalaya, red bean and rice dip (yum), and even a home made king cake recipe!





Now I know my Louisiana peeps will take one look at this pic and say "that's not King Cake"!

But, I have to say, it was pretty tasty.

Other than the colored sugar, it really was nothing like the king cake we grew up with every Mardi Gras season.

It was more like a real cake, a really thin layer cake, with root beer flavored cream cheese frosting.

(I've never seen root beer flavored filling in a 'real' king cake before, cream cheese yes, root beer? Hmmm...)

But that was the recipe Zatarains sent her, and it WAS very tasty.

They also sent her a recipe for homemade root beer, which luckily we just so happened to have all the right ingredients on hand between us, so we went ahead and tried that too!

I was wondering what was up with all the root beer stuff, but I think the hostess was hoping for me to have an answer to that question. I didn't.

So being the curious minded person that I am (or just feeling slightly ignorant and uninformed about my heritage), I asked my dad about it today.

He didn't know either. But he did come up with the fact that the 'root' in root beer is from the sassafras plant, which is also the plant used to make file (pronounced fee-lay) powder.
That I knew. I guess that makes sense then.

(But i did have to pick up the Zatarains box to see if it was really based in Louisiana.)
It was. New Orleans. Oh well.

Anyway, the reason I spelled it:

P.H.A.T. Tuesday

Is because it sounds just like:

Fat Tuesday

But it's just not quite the same.

Everyone knows (ok, maybe not everyone, maybe just everyone from my hometown), that real jambalaya doesn't come from a box (or have tomatoes in it), and real king cake looks like a huge oblong donut with filling inside the pastry (which is most certainly nothing like cake).

All technicalities aside, we had a very nice night with friends, the kids got to dress up and make Mardi Gras masks...





...and I had a good excuse to make some gumbo, (which started with a roux, not a box).





So even though it was somewhat of a 'faux' Cajun style celebration, for Dallas, TX...

...still pretty phat!
;)

It's all about 'The Girls'!

It's Girl Scouts Birthday Week!

In lieu of our weekly meeting, our troop took a field trip to The Women's Museum in Dallas, and let me just say: WOW!



I mean, look at this place!


And this is just the lobby!
(not to mention it's a phone pic)

What a great place to visit with our girl troop on International Women's Day!

What was I thinking not even bringing my camera?

But, we were promptly informed that we couldn't take pictures in any of the galleries... :( bummer.

(but my phone doesn't even have a flash... Something something copyright infringement, etc, ...darn!)

Seriously, I take copyright very seriously. Seriously.

But...

since she clearly stated that it was specifically the items on exhibit that potentially constituted infringement of some sort, and because my iPhone doesn't even have a flash that could potentially damage the artifacts (or accidentally get me busted), and because this building was just so amazing and beautiful, and it's very purpose was to celebrate the incredible women in our history who were responsible for where we women are today, (usually by breaking some rules)...







I really couldn't help myself, but these were the only ones i took, and I was very careful not to get any of the exhibits in the photos! :/

Don't judge.

Anyway...

My life lately seems to revolve around this scout program, so I'm thinking I'd like to get to the root of what the girl scouts organization is all about.

Why did this woman start this scouting group for girls 99 years ago?

...I get the feeling she was a bit of a mover and shaker in her day too.

And I'm thinking that the original spirit and purpose of the Girl Scouts is probably something that is much more in alignment with my personal values system.

I'm thinking I'm going to find out.

Why can't I just go along with the flow and not question things?

I don't know really, it seems like things would be simpler if I could, but it seems that I'm afflicted with the need to really know the why's of things, and really believe in the things we do.

Maybe I'm just feeling all 'girl power' after visiting the Womens museum; or maybe I was meant to be a mover and shaker? ;)

Movie & a Manicure

Sunday was all about having some good QT with my two best girls!

We went to the park, got manicures...


...then went to the movies to see The Chronicles of Narnia- Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and went out for ice cream!

Love to pamper those sweet baby girls!







(I better start bringing in some extra money) ;)

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