Deck the Halls

The tree is up and decorated, the house is "decked" inside and out...

...even the dogs are ready for Christmas :)

I addressed all of the Christmas cards today. I'm still working on a few of the handmade gifts I have going and my shopping is about 95% done! :)

Did you see the "Cold Moon" last night? The next full moon, the Blue Moon, comes at the end of the month.

I hope everyone's December is off to a good start. The kids and I are off to the library today to choose some holiday books and cd's! Speaking of books...I'll be updating the book baskets (on the left) shortly :)

Mitten Strings Mondays

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a (mostly) quiet day and a great dinner if I do say so myself :) So now, here is the next installment of Mitten Strings Mondays. This week's chapter is Wants and Needs. What a great chapter to discuss as we begin the holiday season! Here are my favorite exerpts from this chapter:

• "The fact is that try as I might to stay centered and focused on what's really important, the world sometimes does win. At times, I feel on te losing end of a tug-of-war: on one side, the desire to live simply, without fuss; on the other, the lure of social events, beautiful; things to buy, new places to go." (page 65)
• "We know full well that our children are not yet able to distinguish wants from needs. This is why they are such easy prey for advertisers: children want what they see, and the media is one long enticement - to buy, to have, to get." (page 65)
• "But many of us are just as confused as our children. We fail to distinguish real needs from wants, and we focus on what we don't have rather than on the abundant gifts that are already ours. When we are consumers, we teach our children that it is good to consume. When we try to resolve conflicts of buy happiness by spending money, we teachour children to look outside themsleves when they feel needy. Unfortunately, many of us feel so overwhelmed by the media's demands for our attention, so inundated by consumer goods, and so buffeted by the pace and complexity of our lives that we have little sense of our own genuine needs from one moment to the next - let alone those of our children." (page 65-66)
• "On the other hand, when we pause long enough to give thanks for the abundance of daily life, when we feel good about what we have right now, we teach our children a valuable lesson: We help them accept that they can't have everything they want, and we reassure them that they do have everything they need." (page 66)
• "Right now I have everything I need. When I honor life's gifts with my children, I teach them abundance and strengthen their faith that their own needs will be met." (page 67)

This chapter offers a lot to reflect on. What am I teaching my children when I shop for those craft supplies I just have to have or that beautiful new tea set when I already have a perfectly good one at home? How can I better handle squabbles between my children about what is "fair" when they want something that they feel they need (more computer or video game time, another snack, etc)?

I have a saying on our bulletin board "Fair is when everyone gets what he or she needs, not necessarily what he or she wants." But how can I help them to better understand the difference between wants and needs? As a family, we often discuss the basics that every human needs to survive-- food, clothing and shelter. At this time of year, and especially in the current economic climate, my husband and I find that we not only remind the children more often about needs and wants, but we also remind ourselves. It's so easy to get caught up in the "must haves" of the holiday shopping season-- the latest gadgets, the biggest light display, the "best" gifts for family and friends.

If our goal is to live more simply, no matter the economy, we have to be able to discern wants from needs. This is not only true during the holiday season but 365 days per year and in every aspect of our lives. Do our children really need all of these extra-curricular activities and classes or do we just want them to stay active and involved in things that will look good on their "resumes"? Do we really need a new car or can we get by a little longer fixing the one we currently have or maybe down sizing to one car for a while? Every day our lives are riddles with choices and in making these choices, we must determine which are wants and which are needs in order to set the best example for our children.

Mitten Strings Mondays

After a much needed blog break so that I could get my new house in order, I am back with the next installment of Mitten Strings Mondays. For this next chapter, Secret Places, I am simply going to post my favorite exerpts from this chapter.

• "The best ones are the ones that children discover on their own, the ones that are imbued, from the very first, with a sense of ownership and mystery; places that no adult would ever think to go, that are hollowed by the shapes of small bodies and furnished by wild nature and rampant imagination." (pg 58)
• "Our contemporary landscape does not always allow for such places. The yard crews are told to clean out the corners, the brush pile is carted off to the dump, the hedges are clipped. Inside, the closets are packed with stuff-- our possessions spread into every available space, cluttering our homes and crowding our imaginations as well. But surely every yard, every home, has within it some small place that can be left alone- a cupboard under a stairwell, a basement nook, a patch of dirt behind the garage, a clump of ragged bushes-w here a child can be allowed to cozy up with a book and a pillw, or to dig in the dirt, or simply to make believe, in peace and dignity."
• "As adults, we furnish our homes and groom our yards and plant our gardens. But long before that, we endow our secret places. The cup, the spoon, the book, the trowel, the polished apple saved for later...In choosing these places, and things that go in them, we learn about who we are and what we love. We learn about the power of place, how to partake in the world's subtleties and secrets, of the human need for sanctuary."

Do your children have secret places? Did you have a secret place as a child?

Getting There

Homemaker, First Issue DIY, Decorating Magazine, UK, 1959

I just wanted to check in. The new house is just about unpacked and organized! I should be back to regularly posting by next weekend :)

I'm Baaaaaaccckkk!

Well we are all moved in and just about all unpacked :) I've spent the past 12 days scrubbing things clean, unpacking and organzing our new home. Oh and painting!! :) It's been exhausting but fun. I'm enjoying having a much larger kitchen to cook in but I am having a hard time getting used to the electric cook top and electric oven. I've already warned the family that there is going to be a trial and error period and some food may end up a bit....er.... over cooked while I learn how to use these new appliances :)

Now it's time to leave cyberspace and get back to unpacking and organizing.

~**Happy Halloween**~

A Happy Halloween, Boy with Dog and Jack-o-lantern

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

A gentle breeze rustling the dry cornstalks.

A sound is heard, a goblin walks.

A harvest moon suffers a black cat's cry.

Oh' do the witches fly!

Bonfire catches a pumpkins gleam.

Rejoice, it's Halloween!
-Richard Anderson

And also..

HAPPY SAMHAIN!!!!

October 31st is "Day of the Dead" or Samhain (pronounced Sah-wen)-the Celtic New Year. This is the only earth-centered holiday that also falls on the same day as a major cultural holiday ( Halloween). Much of Halloweens imagery comes from Samhain's pagan roots, but with a negative twist. Rather than viewing spirits as a loving reminder of our beloved dead, our culture typically transforms them into something frightening with no reverence for death, our ancestors or our own inner wisdom. In our family, rather than purchasing store bought popular-character-of-the moment costumes, we encourage our children to be resourceful and imaginative and come up with their own creative costume. Ideally, they wouldn't choose to emulate a "character" but sometimes it does happen, just in a more creative nature than if we went to the store to purchase a pre-made costume. This year, Princess is dressing up as a vampiress, Gamer as "a mish-mash of scary things" (which really make him look like an escaped mental patient! lol), Sportsfan as half Frankenstein-half Vampire and PoohBear as a dinosaur. All of the costumes (except PoohBear's) were designed by the kids, mostly handmade or recycled with very few purchased items :) I'll have pictures later after trick-or-treating :)

Halloween is, and always has been, my favorite holiday!! As a child I remember crunching in the leaves beneath my feet as we walked from house to house trick-or-treating and being mindful of every sight, sound and texture around me. Now, as an adult, I think of this night as the perfect opportunity to connect with everything and everyone around me around me, to open myself to my own intuitiveness and hear my own inner voice.


My Samhain altar is always the same year round except that some items are changed to reflect the season.
Pictured above: The candle from our wedding with a picture of my mother, Nick and I ( which I lit as we entered our reception and it burned all during the reception, closely watched of course :) ), my mother's urn with the "Grandma" ribbon from her casket, some fall leaves and there is a small pumpkin but it wouldn't fit in the picture :)

Since Samhain marks the end of the harvest we will put the garden to rest today and thank the Earth for all it has given us while we prepare it for the cold winter ahead. We will decorate the front door so that it looks inviting for tonight's festivities. Then, after dinner, we will be off trick-or-treating. I love watching my children trick-or-treating and responding to the wonder of the night, especially when they are little. We aren't typically outside after dark and nightfall has a way of making our familiar neighborhood a little eerie (in a magical way though, not in a scary way) and certainly different when lit by flickering jack o' lantern candles and Halloween lights.

So, how will you spend today and tonight?

~Moving~

(photo courtesy of all posters)
We have been packing away over here getting ready for our big move on Sunday to a bigger house.....just across the street from where we are now!! :) I will be M.I.A for the next few days and I'm not sure if I'll be "up and running" by Monday to post the next chapter of Mitten Strings but I will try. I do not like being without the computer for too long so after the tv (for my football fanatic hubby) and the coffee pot, the computer will likely be the next thing on the list to be unpacked and connected :)

~ So happy friday, happy weekend and Happy Halloween!!

Mitten Strings Mondays

This week I'm going to discuss chapter seven~ Play. I wholeheartedly agree with every word of this chapter--so much so that I have almost the entire chapter underlined! Here are the sentiments I feel are the most important in this chapter:

• "So much of the structure that we impose on our children's lives is really intended to make our own lives easier. We don't want to give up our freedom, and so we fail to grant our children theirs." (pg 53)



• "But children need time that is utterly their own--time to take up residence in their own lives, time to dream through an afternoon, time to play with the kids next door, time to wake up to their own pleasures. Above all, they need some time when we adults aren't calling the shots." (pg 53)



• "I grew up in a typical New England town, where it didn't occur to anyone to plan their children's days or even to keep too close an eye on them when they weren't in school. My childhood seemed-to me then and for many years afterward-completely uneventful. But now, raising children of my own, I consider my childhood rich indeed, for I still hold within me those feelings of freedom and self-reliance, and memories of summer days strung together like beads on a string, all of them mine." (pg 55)



• "Today, my husband and I are raising our children in a pretty New England suburb. But the landscape of childhood has changed drastically. Ours is a work-driven culture, fueled by the anxieties of two-career families. We overschedule our own days and keep our children yoked to the calendar as well. There are lessons, organized sports, and playdates; videos, computers and electronic games to fill their hours in between. All too often there is no such thing as "down" time, or even an opportunity for children to experience the satisfaction of engaging in ordinary activities--brushing the dog, washing the car with a hose, walking to town for an ice-cream cone." (pg 55-56)



• " Perhaps we adults have lost the fine art of lollygagging, but at least most of us mastered it as children. We knew what it was to be bored and to find something on our own to do; we knew what lonliness felt like; and we discovered that there is value in being alone sometimes. Left to our own amusements, we found resources that we didn't know we had." (pg56)



• "If we plan all of their days for them, how will they learn to navigate through the idle shallows of their own lives, much less seek out and bask in those calm waters?" (pg 56)



• "A child's sense of time and purpose bears no relation to our own, and these kids are in no hurry to get anywhere. To them, a day without a schedule is a day of possibilities." (pg 57)

Now, it's one thing for me to read something in a book and say to myself "Yes, self, this makes absolute sense! I agree 100%!" and it's an entirely different thing to take the attitude presented and live it. I like to think that I do live as described in this chapter, but as in all aspects in life, there's always room for improvement.

We do not overschedule our children's lives-- academically or recreationally. Nick and I agree that one activity (ie sport, interest-based class, recreational activities, etc) per season is more than enough, especially when you begin to multiply that times four children. We do this for our own sanity as well as for the preservation of their childhoods. As for all of the fabulous educational activities, classes and opportunities that are constantly poppig up for homeschoolers--we pick and choose very wisely. We are never out of the house for more than two "education related activities" per week and even that would be a lot for us!! We have a routine, a rhythm to our days and if I am conscious of that and honor that when presenting ideas to the children or scheduling and signing-up for activities, our lives are much simpler :)

I watch everyone around me with chaotic schedules, rushing from place to place and overlapping activities but at what cost? Time to just play, hang out with friends and do what kids do has to be penciled in weeks in advance or else it just doesn't happen. We find it hard to catch up with our friends and just have a day hanging out because everyone else seems to be moving at a million miles per hour. When we do carve out the time to just hang out and play with our friends we all love it and no one wants to leave (adults included!lol!) :)

There's so much more I could say about the value of unstructured, unplanned, no-parental-involvement -allowed play and it's benefits for children of all ages and stages. I'd like to hear from you though. What do you remember most about playing when you were a child? Are your children able to enjoy the same freedom of play that you did as a child?

~Happy Birthday~

Breakfast in Bed, Husbands and Wives Birthdays, USA 1940

Another birthday...and while I am not getting breakfast in bed I have already had a pre-birthday lunch out alone with Nick and we are going out to breakfast (something that very rarely happens!) I had been hoping to go to the members-only Harry Potter exhibit at the museum but it's sold out for the entire weekend. We are going to see an IMAX movie instead and perhaps Monday we'll see the special HP exhibit. After the museum it's home for cake with my inlaws and then hopefully a very relaxing remainder of the day since this past week was very busy and the week ahead is going to be even busier since we are moving in 8 days!!!

So here are some birthday quotes I'd like to share with all of you:

Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened. ~Jennifer Yane

The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age. ~Lucille Ball

One to-day is worth two to-morrows. Author: Benjamin Franklin

Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest. ~Larry Lorenzoni

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age. Author: Thomas B. Aldrich

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. - Jack Benny

And if you are a history buff check out On This Day which gives you historical events that occured on any date. Here's another one I found called The People History :

What Happened in 1978 (the year I was born):

1978 Following on from the oil crisis Japanese car Imports account for half the US import market. The first first ever Cellular Mobile Phone History of Mobile Phones is introduced in Illinois and Space Invaders appears in arcades Launching a Craze for Computer Video Games . Sweden is the first country in the world to recognize the effect of aerosol sprays on the Ozone Layer and bans the sale. The Serial killer David Berkowitz, "Son of Sam," is convicted of murder after terrorizing New York for 12 months. 1978 is also a great year for movies with Grease, Saturday Night Fever and Close Encounters of the Third Kind all showing in Movie Theatres around the world.

Cost of Living 1978

How Much things cost in 1978

Yearly Inflation Rate USA 7.62% Year

End Close Dow Jones Industrial Average 805

Interest Rates Year End Federal Reserve 11.75%

Average Cost of new house $54,800.00

Average Income per year $17,000.00

Average Monthly Rent $260.00

Cost of a gallon of Gas 63 cents

1LB of Bacon$1.20

Dozen Eggs 48 Cents

Technology
Illinois Bell Company introduces first ever Cellular Mobile Phone System
Space Invaders Launches Craze for Computer Video Games
The first computer bulletin board system BBS is created
98% of all American homes have a television
First Test Tube Baby is born in England a girl Louise Brown, from in vitro fertilization

Inventions Invented by Inventors and Country ( or attributed to First Use )In Vitro Fertilisation England "the First test tube baby is born"

Popular Culture 1978
Popular Films
Grease (my all time favorite movie!)
Saturday Night Fever
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
National Lampoon's Animal House
Jaws 2
Heaven Can Wait
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Revenge of the Pink Panther
The Deer Hunter

Popular Musicians and songs
Bee Gees with " Night Fever and Stayin Alive "
Paul McCartney and Wings
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John
Rolling Stones
Commodores with " Three Times a Lady "
Boomtown Rats

Check out our Television Programmes From The 70s whenever possible we have included a trailer to jog your memory. Series trailers and more information are found on the decade they started.
Popular TV Programmes
Happy Days
Little House on the Prairie
The Rockford Files
Good Morning America
Jim'll Fix It (UK)
Saturday Night Live
Wheel of Fortune
Charlie's Angels
Quincy, M.E.
The Muppet Show
CHiPs
The Love Boat
Three's Company

Mitten Strings Mondays

I'm finding it rather difficult to write about the next chapter in the Mitten Strings Mondays series since this section is about TV. TV, or electronics in general, seem to be such a big part of our lives. While we do monitor the content and quality of what our children (and our family in general) are watching, seeing and hearing, we don't always monitor the quantity.

While I could never take the drastic measures that the author has taken (tv/electronics free lifestyle), there were sections of this chapter that spoke to me:

• "Our lives are a series of choices. Some we deliberate over, others we make automatically. But as we begin to live our lives more consciously, with more attention to the details, we become increasingly aware of just how many decisions we do make in the course of every day--from what we toss into our grocery carts to the images we allow into our living rooms." (pg. 44)
• "Once we see our homes as sanctuaries from a hectic world, then television begins to feel more and more like an unsavory intruder, robbing our rooms of life and meaning, stealing our time, and preying on our souls. When it comes to TV, less really is more. Or, as my son Henry has advised me: 'Just say that TV fills your head up with other people's ideas, which means you don't have so much room for your own. Also, it's a waste of time.; Words of wisdom from a product of the counterculture." (pg. 51)

I do wholeheartedly believe that our lives are a series of choices and everything that makes up our daily lives is just a series of one decision after another. I am careful to choose wisely what I allow into our lives and, especially, into our home. From clothing, to music, to literature, to movies, to tv shows, to the computer, to activities, to friends, to the latest gadget or toy-- it's all a matter of deciding what you will allow to invade your family life and the sanctity of your home.

On the second point I've listed I only half agree with what the author is saying. While I do believe that our homes are meant to be a sanctuary from the outside world, I do not entirely agree with her views on television. As homeschoolers we use movies, media coverage of current events, and educational DVD's as part of the learning process. I am a visual learning and while I enjoy devouring books, sometimes you just have to see something to really understand and grasp it.

We have pretty strict viewing guidelines in place (compared to most mainstream families we know) in our house and if Nick and I haven't previewed something first or aren't familiar with it, then it isn't allowed until we have had a chance to view it ourselves. We utilize the DVR option on our cable box so that we are not a slave to the tv schedule.

Still there are areas where I would love for our family to improve when it comes to "screen time"-- video games, while extremely censored in our home, have taken over! We have tried many "systems" and methods to limit screen time but it never seems to work long term. We do have several rules in place for use such as all chores and school work must be done first and no handheld video games are allowed at social gatherings (such as homeschool & non-homeschool activities, classes, families gatherings etc). Still, I am a busy homeschooling, work-at-home mom who is caring for a home, husband, four children and an elderly grandmother and sometimes I don't take notice of how long they have been playing playstation or Wii.

So what are your thoughts on this chapter? What are your family rules about tv? Do you have any tips for reducing screen time?