Earlier this year, my stepmother was rapidly declining in her health and rather abruptly was admitted to a memory care facility. As part of this transition, I flew up to the area of my childhood home, drove north, and worked on cleaning out her house so it could be put on the market.

One thing that I noticed and loved was the variety of hats in her closet. Sun hats of all types, plus fancy hats to go see the horse races. All different colors, shapes, varieties, with and without decoration.

How many hats do we wear as mothers? We so often are not only mother, but wife and partner, daughter, sister, volunteer, friend, homeschooling teacher, perhaps a professional role outside the home as well, a homemaker with all the different jobs that entails, and perhaps also a homesteader or farmer or a creator and artist. So many roles!

When I remember looking at the hats scattered across the floor, it made me think how we pull out a hat for a specific event the way we pull out a specific role in our day. I have a practice treating new mothers in both pelvic floor health and in lactation and many new mothers tell me the sheer number of roles feels overwhelming. They are trying to mother, be a wife, be a homemaker, work outside the home and be productive at work in the same way they were before they had children….and perhaps in the process forgetting or not having time for the most important role: that of themself.

Taking care of ourselves in whatever way that looks like to us is so important. Some mothers are easily overstimulated with noise or the number of children talking to them at once. Some mothers are overwhelmed with the idea of working and being productive in an outside job all day and coming home to be “on” to a job within the home.

What ways have you found to cope with overwhelm in different roles or what ways have you found to take care of yourself? You can only be so much to so many. Be easy with yourself.

Blessings,

Carrie

The days are shorter, the nights are colder, and the leaves on the deciduous trees have fallen. We are headed toward winter, a time of deep rest, a time of projects, a time of wonder at snow and lights and the beautiful winter sky with the skeletons of trees etched against the horizon.

I love the anticipation of a cozy, candlelit December. We are coming into the month of December, a month of anticipation and preparation in the Christian Calendar but also a month of cozy anticipation for many as winter arrives. We can set up a seasonal table with snow white and pink silks, crystals of quartz and amethyst, glass vases, paper snowflakes or an beautiful Advent tableau with a dark blue silk with candles and gold paper stars. The traditional Advent wreath can come out.

We are moving from a time of mourning and remembering our ancestors, the saints, those who have gone before us to passing through the winter to a new year and a new path. We are preparing for what is to come. What are the deepest longings of your heart for the coming year?

Advent can be a time of fasting and preparing and contemplating for this new beginning. I have already chosen my word of the year for 2024 (for more on that tradition, see back posts)..I think this is going to be a restorative year, so I chose the word CREATE. I will have one child finishing college this year in December, another child who is now living on her own many states away, another child beginning high school in the fall of 2024, and we will have been on our farm for three years in the spring. I have also dealt with a major life threatening health challenge this year and treatments are wrapping up, so I think 2024 is going to be an amazing year for renewal and restoration for myself and my family and also for creating all kinds of things to help others. I am looking forward to this so much.

This post talks  Advent from a Waldorf perspective.  If you are from another faith tradition and are blogging about this month, please leave a link to your blog below so my readers can find you!   I am Christian and therefore can only write from the perspective of our life, but so appreciate other perspectives. One thing I am thinking strongly about is how we as a family make a very conscious effort to slow down, not speed up, this holiday season.  You can see my contemplation about that in this post about the  simple holiday season.  and this post which holds  answers to parents’ holiday questions.

Here are some things we are celebrating this month:

December 3- First Sunday in Advent

December 6 – St. Nicholas Day –please do see Christine Natale’s tremendous post here St. Nicholas Day and starting new holiday traditions  and  favorite stories for St. Nicholas

December 10 – Second Sunday in Advent

December 13 – Santa Lucia Day

December 17 – Third Sunday in Advent

December 24- Fourth Sunday in Advent

December 24- Eve of the Nativity

December 25 – Feast of the Nativity, and the first day of the Twelve Days of Christmas  – there are many back posts on the Twelve Days of Christmas if you search under “Family Life” and “festivals” or use the blog’s search engine.

The Twelve Days of Christmas, December 25- January 6th

Our traditions include walking an Advent Spiral, crafting and baking.  If you need gift ideas for this season, please see  last minute gifts to make  and more last minute gifts to make.  There are many wonderful ideas our readers submitted as well in the comment sections.

I would love to hear from you – what holiday traditions are you creating, what are your goals for the next year, what are doing with your homeschooling. I can’t wait to learn from you all and create with you!

Blessings and love,
Carrie

I have seen the many different paths that former homeschooled young adults take, and I think there are multiple ways to define success in homeschooling. This might be something as nebulous as “being socialized” (whatever on earth does that mean?) or perhaps it could be measured in terms of holding a job and being able to support themselves and/or attending higher education.

However, some of the things I enjoy looking at as indicators of long- term homeschooling success might be more along the lines of:

They can adult! They have what it takes to be independent within where they are. Some who have graduated from high school still live at home due to finances, but that is true for many young adults who have had more traditional schooling as well right now due to cost of living. However, they can cook,clean, run a household, and are responsible with their work in and outside of their homes.

They know who they are, and this is not readily swayed by a peer group.

They have a passion and they are out chasing their dreams in whatever form that looks like.

They have successful relationships inside of and outside of the family.

They choose to participate in their community.

How do you measure homeschooling success? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Blessings,
Carrie

The colorful leaves are still hanging on the trees where I live, but I can tell in just a few days they will all be on the ground. The air has a crispness to it that we don’t see much of the year, and I smile because although things may be more dreary outside than at the beginning of this season, I enjoy the opportunity to slow down.

To dream of the holidays and my children being home.

To dream of next year’s spring garden.

To dream of the new horse showing season.

To dream of what my word of the year will be (Instead of doing a New Year’s Resolution, I always pick a word that I want the next year to embody).

On a bigger scale, I dream of things for my adult children and for our community and the world at large. Slowing down and getting cozy with this season is a natural way of life. I am trying to burrow into this coziness like a small mammal hibernating for winter.

I have some medical treatment this month that will take me into January, and I am so looking forward to fresh, clean, unwritten 2024.

These are the things we are celebrating this month at the farm:

This month we are celebrating:

• November 1 All Saints Day
• November 2 All Souls Day
• November 10/11  Martinmas and Veterans Day
• November 19 St. Elizabeth
• November 23 Thanksgiving
• November 27  I have it in my calendar to make Advent Wreaths in preparation for the first Sunday in Advent, December 3rd.  (Hard to believe Advent is almost upon us!  If you want a little peek ahead, try my Advent Pinterest Board)

Learning and celebrating ideas for those of you with children or grandchildren at home:

• Learn songs for a Martinmas Lantern Walk
• Use transparency paper to make window silhouettes and transparency cut-outs and lanterns.
• Bake bread on the cold days
• Look for bird’s  nests as the trees lose their leaves; make feeders start to be filled all the time, make treats for the birds
• Dip leaves in glycerin or beeswax and preserve them
• Cook things with cranberries, corn, and pumpkin.
• Learn some Thanksgiving songs and practice so you can play them after Thanksgiving Dinner!
• Find a place to volunteer to serve Thanksgiving dinner
• Make Thanksgiving Baskets and leaving them on your neighbor’s doorstep!
• Gather greens and natural items to use for an Advent Wreath.  We do this at church from the areas surrounding the church and it is quite lovely!
• Find books, cozy blankets and pillows, and mark off half days for just reading and lounging around. Pull out candles, homemade Martinmas lanterns, salt lamps  and scatter them around.  Cuddle up and read aloud with some fabulous tea or hot chocolate.
• Find handwork projects that you will love and get started.

Other Ideas for this month:

• Get a small jump on gifts for the holidays. Here is my Pinterest Board of holiday gifts to make
• Make sure you are still getting your Vitamin N and get out in nature! Move your body!
• Dream a little about the next school year in homeschooling ❤ I am looking at high schools for our last child at home, and I see our homeschooling chapter coming to a close which is bittersweet.

Just a few notes from my corner of the world,

Carrie