It's official

I've moved. I'm posting at

A Call to Adventure

Please change your bookmarks. Now. Don't wait months like some people I know (I'm talking to myself here, not anyone else who knows who they are, LOL).

:) :) :) <---those smilies mean I'm a nice person and you don't want to lose touch with me.

Even though I'm weird. And whiny.

See you there!

Please? ;-)

The Conundrum

As I mentioned a few days ago I'm itching to go back to my "A Call to Adventure" blog that I had years ago. I thought maybe I'd just use that blog for a specific purpose, like to chronicle the lifestyle changes I'm trying to make. So I went into blogger and quickly made up the blog...and when I saw it my whole body just went "Ahhhhhhh...."

"Ahhhhhh" is NOT the feeling I get when I'm here. Doesn't that even sound silly? "Here" is not anywhere, it's a piece of cyberspace! Yet I feel anxious when I'm "here" in this little patch of electrons. I named my blog Epiphany Springs in the hope that I would have my dream to go along with the blog - a house a bit further out in the country with some sort of brook or spring near it. That dream seems quite far away right now, and it make me a bit anxious and sad to think about it.

Even dh wants me to take a break from house hunting. He says it's making me crazy. (I counter with the fact that it's OTHER things making me crazy - I house hunt to get away from that and hope for something new and exciting...).

So back to the "Ahhhh" feeling. There isn't even anything over at "A Call to Adventure," it's just a blank Minima template (ETA: a little time on my hands and there are now Epiphany Springs posts over there and a header photo), but it took me back to a time where life was a bit easier, and I felt my call to this crazy homeschooling/SAHMing/Catholic lifestyle a bit stronger, a bit more wonderfully. The title reminds me that we're all called to be saints, and that this life should be considered a grand adventure. I want that Ahhhhh back in my life, that sense of peace in my purpose. Epiphany Springs just reminds me that my will and God's are at odds right now. :(

So I guess there IS no conundrum. The difficulty when I started this post was wondering whether I should keep BOTH blogs going, but I think I answered my own question. Come what may. Give me a few days, I need to pretty it up, but unless in the next week we put an offer on a house with a stream in the backyard, I'll be making new digs over at A Call to Adventure. I need to be true to myself, and true to God's call.

My greatest gift

I was feeling a little worked up about something this morning, and Jeffrey (21 months) came up to me and hugged me. I hugged him tight and said, "I love you!" and clear as day, this toddler who barely puts two words together said, "I love you too"

Surely that will be my greatest gift today.

Dental math

I think an hour and a half at the dentist's with five kids should equal enough of an excuse experience to skip science, health and even math for the littles today, right? Maybe even a little purgatory time? Hmmm?

How I know my 11yo is entering the Logic Stage

And no, it's not because she's getting argumentative, because she's ALWAYS been argumentative, LOL!

This is the scene in the car yesterday. Don't think it's always this lovely.

Jane: I love Mommy a million times more than God loves me.

Skye: I love Mommy a million times more than God loves me, times a thousand plus infinity.

Batty: IIIIII love Mommy plus infinity plus infinity plus infinity plus infinity!

Rose (11) with her "silly little sisters" voice on: I love mommy only as much as is possible.

I actually really got a kick out of that.

This is really beginning to irk me

and I don't even LIKE the word irk! ;=)

I can't open my own website. Something about IE and blogspot are not jiving lately, and everything crashes. It's not just this site, either, it's many different blogspot blogs, but for some reason not all, and not all the time!

But it's making me really antsy to want to move again. It's like having your front door stick all the time - supposed to be bad chi. You're not supposed to feel unwelcome in your own home. Well, my blog front door is stuck. :-P

And besides, I'm missing my old "A Call to Adventure" personna (and readers, I had readers back then, LOL!) I can hear Willa going, "Cool..." :)

Well, I'm not going anywhere right now, except to put my son to bed. But blogger doesn't seem to be fixing this little problem. So I stay irked.

ETA: Well, I did a little googling and one blogger mentioned that it could be a problem with the "followers" gadget/widget on the sidebar, so I removed mine and it worked! This time, at least.

I still feel like I want to move, but that's probably because our house hunting is going nowhere.

Let's just say ...

...that PMS and new curriculums and having a super busy dh DON'T MIX.

Lots of new learning notes up over at Epiphany Prep School, and lots of fodder for confession. We're not going to get ANYWHERE with the loveliness of Oak Meadow and Waldorf if I'm loosing my cool over everything. At least I'm not losing it over the children's work - other than trying to organize 3 different levels with a multitude of interruptions - I'm losing it over all the OTHER things like the constant low level sneakiness/forgetfulness/disobedience or certain children who just float around in a dream and so never ever clean up after themselves. Ahem. Oh and the simple chaos of having a few littles, like the toddler taking off his diaper right over the girls artwork, or him constantly shoving his toothbrush in my face, or the incessant low level whininess...ahem again. Not to mention the 4yo on steriods. Sigh.

But like I said, I need to be the thermostat not the thermometer. I'm realizing I'm a very weak personality, and my children have STRONG personalities. I need to get strong. Not sure how. It's not like I let them get away with disobedience, it's so much more subtle than that - but I know I've been like this around kids "forever" because I felt like my clients when I worked as an SLP walked all over me too. It's one of the reasons I have no business going back to work as an SLP with kids. Adults either want to work or they don't, you can encourage them but you don't have to "force them to fall into line with your very presence" like you need to with kids.

All that being said, my kids are enjoying their new work. My oldest is JAZZED by it. That is good. I hope they remember the work and not the fact that it made their mother's head explode. Boom.

Not the most creative, but I did it

I started a Catholic Waldorf egroup on yahoogroups - thank you KC for your help! I'm too impatient to wait for my other 4 readers to comment, LOL.

It's called St. Brigid Teacher's Lounge (see what I mean by not creative???) and the address to join is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stbrigidTL . I have it set to approve new members, so hopefully I can be quick about that.

Funny thing is, I couldn't sleep last night and thought of a name for the group, "St. Brigid's SOMETHINGOROTHER" and I was so afraid I would forget it that I kept repeating it to myself every time I woke up, which was often. Of course, you guessed it, now that I am awake I have *no idea* what the name was. All I can remember is that I kept picturing a huge tree with a sort of cave in the base of the trunk and that reminded me of the name. I don't know, maybe it was all a dream.

So please spread the word about my group if you know other people who are interested in Catholic Waldorf inspired curricula such as Serendipity, or Catholicizing Oak Meadow, Christopherus, etc. THANKS!!

Peace and all good,

Amy

Catholic Waldorf egroup?

I've been wanting to start a yahoogroup for Catholics who are using Waldorf-like curricula and want to Catholicize them and talk to other people in the same boat.

I don't *think* there is anything out there like that - please someone inform me if you know I'm wrong. Then I'll stop obsessing and go join it, LOL.

But if there is no such thing and I wind up starting one, I can't come up with a good name!

I thought maybe "Catholic Waldorf." But, 1. It's boring, 2. I know that to true Waldorf followers there is no CHANGING Waldorf. "That's NOT Waldorf!" they say adamantly, like about Oak Meadow. So it would be more true to say "Catholic Not-Really-But-Almost-Waldorf" which is a mouthful. ;-)

Then I tried to get creative which is always a scary thing - maybe "Creative Catholic Child," since it hits the heart of why I like Waldorfy things. But it misses the mark in my opinion. Then I thought maybe something like "Head, Heart, Hands" which is kind of like the underlying motto of Waldorf. "Catholic 3H"? Ugh.

So I'm asking my smart readers, do you have any ideas or like one I've already mentioned or something like it?

I know we already talk about Waldorf a bit on the 4Real Forums, but I don't feel free to really *get into it* there due to the past shutting down of threads and the fact that many people there think Waldorf education should be avoided like the plague.

Any thoughts?

Saturday's epiphany

A few posts ago I mentioned that I wasn't prepared to start school again because I wasn't sure what I was doing yet with Oak Meadow/Serendipity/Waldorf-ish education. Today I realized that while that may be true, what I *really* am is SCARED! Scared that this new way of schooling won't be the healing, nurturing thing I hope it will be. Scared that it's just going to BOMB, and my relationship with my children will wind up deeper in the hole than it already is. We need to do school, and we need to bond more, and be gentle and fun together, and I so desperately want Oak Meadow/Waldorf-ish schooling to fulfill those needs, PLUS be a good education! We can't afford to do "school lite" anymore, esp. with my dyslexic oldest.

Aaaaaaaaaa!! THAT's why I don't want to start school up again. I'm terrified it'll fail, and then I won't know WHAT to do.

Finally, they're giving back

After all these years of the washer/dryer fairies stealing socks, today we took a cute light blue shirt out of the dryer that none of us had ever seen before. Thank you dryer fairies! :-)

Prayers please

For Jeffrey and Batty who have high fevers and no other symptoms (other than feeling lousy from their high fevers, I mean), for their daddy who seems sick with something else, and their mama who was up all night with one of the hot ones. ;-)

I'm offering a prayer of thanksgiving that it isn't any worse, and for my mom who came and took Rose to the orthodontist (third time in a week something has broken, grrrr...).

Maybe this will be my new homeschooling room

In a few days we have an appointment to see another house...5 decent sized bedrooms (I think there are 3 upstairs, one on main floor, one in basement? Four(!) full bathrooms (a good thing with four teenage daughters at the same time, no?), fenced yard, a quiet looking street that even ends in a trail (I think) to a state park/stream. Biggest problem we can see, (without having seen it I mean)? It's horribly overpriced for what it is. *If* we like it, hopefully the sellers will see reason and accept a low offer. Really low. It doesn't look that big either, from the outside. It might be all bedrooms! And a sunroom, I suppose. ;-)

We're still on a break from school, which is good because we seem inundated with doctor and orthodontist visits, house visits, research to try to help my dad deal with my elderly, and now broke, grandmother...

I'm itching to get started again, but at the same time, so NOT READY. I want this to be a creative, beautiful, and healing year for all of us. But I feel like I don't know HOW to make that happen - it feels like a matter of not being able to teach it because I'm not emotionally there myself, YKWIM? I wish I could go back in time and do this curriculum (in a cabin, ALONE, LOL, for at least a year) and learn how to be at peace, and to love, and to do needle felting. ;-)

I need to run and hug my kids, they are almost done with their snack and I've wasted enough time here. Not than any of you dear readers are a waste of my time! But talking to you doesn't get my laundry folded, or the mess that just prompted a big UH OH from my 4yo cleaned up. :-P

Have I said "Thank Heaven for St. DH" lately?

St. DH is going to bring dinner home so I can be lazy recover after a long day and long drive to a friends house ... on the kind of day I'd rather curl up in a ball with a blanket over my head, LOL. It was a "work visit" - I helped her with her yearly homeschool review, so I couldn't keep putting it off.

Anyway - THANK YOU St. DH for dinner. So I can sit here and blog, LOL! The kids unearthed a Monopoly CD for the computer and are checking it out. I can 'dish' here about the house we saw last night.

I'm glad I didn't get my hopes up. At least I can honestly say it's the best house we've seen so far that we can afford. But they are asking too much, I don't think I can get over the fact that it's right next to a busy road (safety wise), the place is covered with this weird fabric type wallpaper that has totally absorbed the smells and dander of their many cats and dogs, and their fifth bedroom is smaller and more awkwardly shaped than the master bedroom's walk in closet! Now, there were plenty of great things about it, like the large lot and the horse farm you could see from the backyard!

Today I found out that another place we had our eye on has drastically dropped their price - this place is actually TWO houses on one 1+ acre lot. Weird maybe, but functional for an in-law house or my parents perhaps? Their are many downsides to it, but maybe enough upsides to make it work? I don't know - we haven't gone in, only driven by. Now the price is low enough that we could get a mortgage on our own, and get help actually paying it through rent. Because while we could technically afford the mortgage for it, we wouldn't be able to put any money into retirement or education, and would have to nickle and dime everything else. With rent we'd have a cushion again, I think!

Well, enough silly chit-chat from me. The Monopoly game appears to be deteriorating into a Monopoly fight. I'd better help them work out some nasty energy setting the table.

Taking a Cleaning Breather

Well, I've got a house bee in my bonnet again, so I'm busy packing and cleaning today. Things are looking better.

I showed St. DH a 100-year-old renovated farmhouse on over 2 acres last night and much to my surprise, he liked it! So we are hopefully going to see it in the next few days. Upsides - the 2+ acres, 5 bedrooms are all upstairs, house has been added on to (in late 1980's) and renovated at least to some extent, the family room is full of windows. Downsides - 2+ acres is a lot to care for, it's a corner lot and street that goes alongside the lot is quite busy and fast (there are evergreens/trees almost all along that side, however, and we hope to fence at least a portion), it's OLD and we don't know what is possibly wrong with it or how much has been changed/updated - I'm guessing we'll learn more when we see it. It's also at the upper end of our comfortable price range.

Anyway, I'm NOT getting my hopes up this time. I'm looking forward to seeing it, though. I figure if I stay emotionally non-commital right now, I'll know if I get that "Wow this house HAS to be ours!" feeling when I see it.

Back to my packing-cleaning-decluttering. I'm working on a box of junk that I packed away months ago in a quick-my-parents-are-coming-over tidy. Finally!!