The time leading up to the holidays, particularly if you celebrate Solstice, Hanukkah, or Christmas as your major feast for this season, can feel like a whirlwind of decorating, baking, wrapping, giving, end of semester recitals and plays and finals (maybe not this year with Covid-19, but every state and school seems to be different!) …leading up to the major holiday and it can feel exhausting! Maybe if you are like my family, you celebrate several smaller festivals in this month such as St. Nicholas Day, Santa Lucia, an Advent Spiral (which is a walk around a spiral of evergreens) or more, which can sometimes feel like too much if all of it is elaborate!

In this time, slowing down and being together is the thing that really matters the most. Take time to read together, to make window stars and straw stars, to dry orange slices for a garland for the tree, to string popcorn and dip candles, and to otherwise bring the pace as a spiral inward and inward and inward. We can do this by being gentle in our actions towards ourselves and others and setting time aside for our own self care and to relax and enjoy this season of light, love, and generosity. Relaxing during this month should be a given, yet how many mothers actually relax in the midst of all the whirlwind of things to be done? Take heart, you don’t need that many “things” to create family memories for Advent.

This week we are working on a few small projects that I will be highlighting on FB/IG, including making window stars and dipping candles. These are very doable projects with children. Window stars are a simple folding of a square of kite paper (held up like a diamond shape), fold in half and unfold, and then bring the sides of the paper to that crease. Glue the corners down and do this for enough points to make your star! Candles are also easy with melted beeswax (a garage sale crockpot works well for this), and a simple wick and a nearby pitcher of cold water. Dipping takes time, but children are often fascinated watching their candle be built up, flattening the bottom as they go along, and doing that over and over. You can flatten the bottom when it is still warm onto a little round of wood for the holder. Simple and satisfying.

St. Nicholas Day is on Sunday, and we can bring to this day a gentle, easy, and nourishing time with tea, special foods, and perhaps a little gift (or not) if this is not your main time of gift giving (for some families it is the major time of gift giving). When our children were younger, St. Nicholas Day was perhaps bigger than we celebrate it now. We never did a lot with the idea of Santa Claus (one unwrapped smaller gift was from “Santa”). However, perhaps more importantly than “getting” is children learning how to give and how to have the spirit of St. Nicholas in them at all times. Have you been getting into “good trouble” as John Lewis would say, helping others without them knowing, with a twinkle in your eye? Are you generous and kind all year round? This is the spirit of Advent and Christmas. What can your children give? What can they do to be generous and helpful and kind? Is there someone your family can help in a tangible, secret way? Those are the amazing opportunities that this month opens up into our hearts and souls.

Blessings,

Carrie

As I write this, we are almost done quarantining for the second time this year. It may not be the last time we have to do this, because now only three out of the five of us have had Covid-19. I have a great deal of gratitude that none of us were extremely ill, that we took precautions that probably made the course of our illness better and certainly better for our community, and that we have a warm house and plenty of food while we are home.

This year, however uneven and trying at times, has offered up its own brand of blessings and promises. I am finishing my clinical doctorate in December should all things go well. I started working at two new jobs. This year has been so hard for so many, but it can become a foundation to build up from. Many people spent more time at home with their families than they ever had. School situations changed and parents were more aware than ever as to what went on at school, or decided to change schooling and be all in with whatever way they choose to educate their child. People cut back expenses, cut back on driving, cooked more at home, gardened and canned more, and overall found joy in things that before may have been in the category of “I will do that if I have time.” Hopefully this foundation of the family and the home will bring a stability and a place to build sustainability for the future.

So, in this time leading up to American Thanksgiving on Thursday, may your blessings be many. May you acknowledge the atrocities of the past and the land you stand on at your dinner, if you do that on Thanksgiving Day. Here is a place to find what First Peoples to remember where you live: https://native-land.ca/. May we never gloss over nor forget. I wrote a post in 2015 with these words about the act of giving thanks and it seems true today:

In a world that often seems shattered, broken, and perhaps beyond repair….

Let us give thanks in our hearts for the light we and others can bring to the world.

Let us give thanks for our best attempts to be kind, compassionate and caring to ourselves, our children and the world.

Let us give thanks for all the good things we model for our children.

Let us give thanks for all the helpers in the world.  There are many.

Let us give thanks for all that we have, and all the ways in which we can help others.

Let us give thanks for the beauty of the earth and skies and seas.

Let us give thanks for the animals and plants and the diversity of all human beings and cultures around the world.

Let us give thanks for peace and show the world love.

May your gratitude be great as we bring even more light into the world during this season. May your acts of kindness be bold.

Blessings and peace,

Carrie

We live in a world rife with anxiety, depression, and turmoil. Individual circumstances placed upon a backdrop of COVID-19, different schooling situations, and political tensions has made 2020 a tumultuous year for many. I have received many emails about helping our families defuse some of the tension and stress surrounding this year, so I wanted to share a few ideas with you all today.

One of the first and basic things that I find helpful is to shore up any kind of loose rhythm that works for your family. This provides structure and stability even if we don’t feel as if we have it in us to give. A simple rhythm could be a warm breakfast, school with breaks or work around the home, a reading or art time, a warm lunch, rest time, outside time and movement, warm dinner and a warm bath, turning lights off and “putting the house” to sleep and bedtime.

Warmth is an important consideration in these times, both physically in warming foods and clothing appropriate for your area, but also in emotional tone. A peaceful, attentive, and loving tone can be difficult to transmit to children when we ourselves are feeling completely stressed and depleted. Coming up with our own rhythm of self care is vitally important during these times. This can be as simple as remembering to eat, and going to bed at a normal hour. It can be stepped up with a walk outside, yoga or stretching, listening to music that makes you smile, connecting with people in whatever way you can safely, setting a timer on your phone to drink water or meditate or pray.

Trying to keep tension away from children in the home can be very difficult, but one thing to consider is cutting down the negative influences streaming into your home, whether this is on the news, social media, people who stress more than bless, etc. Trying to protect yourself so you can be all that your family needs is okay! It is okay to have boundaries and be selective as to what things honestly give you energy and what people and things drain you.

In times like this, working with the hands is often soothing. Gardening, even in containers, is satisfying, as is making bread by hand, fermenting foods, cleaning and polishing, setting up bird feeders and making suet or pine cone bird feeders. Handwork can be helpful – small children can roll balls of yarn and finger knit, older children can knit, crochet, sew. There are always things like window stars to make or window transparencies which can be a lot of fun for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.

Stories for small children that have a protective element to them in the vein as The Mitten by Jan Brett are very healing, or finding a wonderful story that the entire family can listen in on is also helpful.

The small things that seem the most ordinary can be the most healing for this time and place. Holding warmth and stability can heal our families, one by one in our own homes and then we can then send that love out into the world.

Blessings and peace,

Carrie

We so often try to pretend everything is fine. We aren’t thriving, we aren’t feeling fantastic, maybe we are on the edge of literal exhaustion, but you know, overall we are fine. Even though we know we really aren’t. We really could be better. True exhaustion is a hard thing to climb out of, like being stuck in a deep ravine with steep walls on all sides. But yet, as parents and as human beings, we deserve more and to thrive in our lives with joyfulness.

Moving from exhaustion to thriving requires something more than being fine. It requires figuring out what is really and truly essential and nourishing, and moving toward that. I especially enjoy embracing this task as we move into the darker days of winter. There is something special about all the festivals of light that occur in these months of dwindling sunlight such as Martinmas with its lanterns (November 11), Diwali with its lights (November 14), Advent (which begins November 29) and Hanukkah which begins on December 10. I still cling to these traditions, even if we celebrate in a more low key way with older children at this point because those traditions give me nourishment. The creativity nurtured in these ways nurtures me.

Another way I find that helps me climb out of the exhaustedly fine stage is to block out days to be home. Even with working part time and homeschooling, I still try to do this. Some weeks are more successful than others just because teenagers need to be places and if they can’t drive, their schedule becomes your schedule, but I do try. I also block out blocks of time and carve self care into those blocks. So today looked like-

8-10 Homeschooling (Laundry, dishes)

10-10:30 walk outside in the beautiful air

10:30-11:30 More homeschooling (Prepare lunch)

11:30 get ready for work/drive

1-4 work

4-5 Self Care

Dinner

Errands

Schoolwork for myself and my teenager, look at calendar for tomorrow

Pray and Bed

Each day looks a little different, but I find I am most successful with combatting that sense of being exhausted if things have a rhythmical order that includes me and not just me being in the state of doing for everyone else. It’s a tough thing to learn and try, but yet rather than having the days and hours slip away and out of our hands, especially with older children where we can be pulled by so many directions, it is helpful to think of the anchors of the year and of our days.

What are you doing to combat your exhaustion? I would love to hear!

Blessings and love,

Carrie

September feels like new beginnings and fresh starts, even here in the South where the temperatures are still sweltering, everything is still green at this moment, school already started in August – but it still holds that harvest promise and the intimate feeling that the autumnal equinox is coming soon.

What my family is celebrating this month in great gratitude:

Labor Day – September 7  I have talked about attending parades on this day in the past, and of course, this year I imagine most will be canceled with COVID19. Perhaps you have had builders or workers in your family that made important contributions to tell your children.

The Nativity of St. Mary – September 8

Holy Cross Day – September 14

Autumn Equinox – September 22 – You can see my Autumn Pinterest Board for ideas!

The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels – September 29.  This is one of my favorite celebrations in the church and at home!  You can see my MIchaelmas Pinterest Board for some ideas!

The Home Mood:

To me, the fall becomes a time of turning inward; a time of gratitude and reflection.  How do my words, my actions, reflect my gratitude toward my Creator and toward my life?  How do I interact with others in order to show this?  There is a quote I often think about from Dr. Rudolf Steiner that talks about this. He says;

The cultivation of this universal gratitude toward the world is of paramount importance.  It does not always need to be in one’s consciousness, but may simply live in the background of the feeling life, so that, at the end of a strenuous day, one can experience gratitude, for example, when entering a beautiful meadow full of flowers……And if we only act properly in front of the children, a corresponding increase in gratitude will develop within them for all that comes to them from the people living around them, from the way they speak or smile, or the way such people treat them.”  Rudolf Steiner from “A Child’s Changing Consciousness As The Basis of Pedagogical Practice”

Gratitude is such an important mood to create in the home. I think this creation can be tangible,  like those gratitude jars or going around the table at night and sharing something we have gratitude for…those are wonderful in their own way, but I think creating a  true mood of gratitude in the home actually is a much harder and deeper task.  How to  really permeate this mood and carry it, even when things are overwhelming, is for this season of overcoming and courage as we head toward the longer nights of Winter.

Menu planning:  we are warming up to oatmeal, chilis, stews, soups, fresh baked bread.

Homeschooling:

• Our oldest graduated in May and is off to an out of state college!
• Tenth Grader – Our tenth grader is in a hybrid school (four days a week, modified schedule)  so by law we are homeschooling, but I honestly don’t feel as if I have much to do other than help with homework and organizing assignments.
• Fifth Grader – our fifth grader is still traditionally homeschooling.   We began with Ancient India and will be moving into Ancient Persia this week.  We are busy with math and spelling practice, main lesson, some physical fitness activities, chores, and barn life with our horses.  Our days at home look like reading aloud, math practice, main lesson, a break,  art, spelling practice, chores, and in the later afternoons physical movement. On the two days I work at a clinic, our fifth grader attends an outdoor homeschool enrichment program that is for boys only and involves a lot of work, team building, and physical fitness.
• Me – I am still working on my clinical doctorate and working two days a week at a clinic and seeing some private patients. It is a juggle some weeks and can be overwhelming but honestly I really enjoy my patients and am glad to be working a little in my field.

I would love to hear what and how you are celebrating in September!

Blessings,
Carrie

I truly hope that the millions of people forced into helping their children learn at home right now don’t think this is normal homeschooling. It’s so far from it! Homeschoolers are generally out in the community for learning and to be with each other. Some homeschoolers do choose to learn on line, but most of us create lesson plans or follow something so that we are homeschooling for up to 4 hours a day and on to the rest of our lives after that. Some of us do work around homeschooling, but this is something that is planned, and we aren’t thrown into it. So needless to say, pandemic homeschooling can be so stressful!

However, I do think there are five things you can learn from your veteran homeschooling friends (besides how to hide in the closet with the secret chocolate stash). Hopefully these will help you as now most states are finishing out the school year at home, many with shelter in place orders:

1. Get dressed. Yes, you can homeschool in your pajamas and we frequently do in the winter, but trying to set a new rhythm for learning at home sometimes can seem more serious and worthy if everyone is up and dressed.
2. Figure out how to get movement into your school day. Many of the schools are on-line at this point, including some with live classes running all day. That’s a lot of sitting and can be a lot of eye strain! So starting the day with a walk, taking breaks between classes, moving a laptop or tablet from room to room for different classes or even outside can all be helpful. You can also plan movement breaks after school. Some people have large yards or land, which is great, but some of us are sheltered in apartments or have a small yard. You can try Cosmic Kids Yoga online, lead a game of tag or sardines or a dance party or a pillow fight.
3. Plan your work day around when your children need you most. If you have small children, they are going to need more help than a high schooler. You can adjust your work day by working earlier or later, switching with your partner if you have a partner in the home, or just planning work and school increments. Veteran homeschoolers are often working with multiple children coming at them with varying questions and projects along with all the household chores. Folding laundry and doing math problems together, for example, is common. Veteran homeschoolers are used to interruptions and rolling with it, and you can do that with all household things but not so easy with online meetings and online work – so try to plan the best you can in increments to alternate meetings/work and schoolwork and helping your children. Increments are okay, things will get done!
4. Put your children in charge of doing things around the house. Everything cannot be on one adult trying to work and direct learning from home. Everyone needs to pitch in for laundry, meals, and nourishing care of the home. Try a crockpot or instapot to cut down on some of the meal preparation time.
5. Pull out toys and things to do so your children find something to do when they are waiting for you to check their schoolwork or to help them. Learning how to wait is something that traditionally homeschooled children have to learn as well. You can rotate small boxes of toys and pull thing out so something new and fresh is out every few days. Invest in some art supplies, crafts, puzzles, yard toys, or things for inside your apartment for movement as it will help save your sanity in the long run.

Last of all, have as much fun as you can. These times are hard and uncertain, but it’s a gift to be with our children and safe if we are able (I know not everyone is able, and some parents come home to being on quarantine due to their high risk jobs). Give yourself some slack, and know you are doing the very best you can do right now in this moment.

Many blessings,
Carrie