It's not about sewing

When people see or hear about my kids sewing, most think it's pretty great, everyone comments on their creativity and no one says, out right, that it's a waste of time.

L's first dress, designed and sewn herself

They don't point out any obvious flaws and seem genuinely impressed with the finished product. They want to be supportive and encouraging. And, for the most part they are. I love the feedback my kids get and they grow immeasurably in the light that the wonderful people in our lives shine on their hard work. Most of our friends and family, this is what they give, in endless waves, building and encouraging.

 K and her cousin made a playmat for a teacher's first baby

Inevitably, though, there's that one person who, as the kids walk away, or occasionally just before, turns the conversation to the usefulness of such a skill. There is almost always someone who, in essence, says sure it's a neat thing to know how to do, but it's so much more costly to sew your own clothes nowadays. You can buy stuff so cheap and fabric is pricey. Or maybe they imply, there aren't many good jobs in the field of fashion design, seamstresses aren't paid high wages. Oh, but maybe they could work in costume design for movies! In fact, maybe, there have been times when that person was me.

C's first time solo at the machine, a gift for a cousin's birthday

 But, here's the thing...It's not about the sewing. Sure, if my kids choose a job in the fashion, sewing, fabric, or textile fields (of which I am quite sure there are opportunities) they may have a leg up being exposed so young, but maybe not and, really now, they're kids, we're not planning career paths just yet.

B's first sewing project a tree decoration we still use every winter solstice.

No it's not about the sewing. They sew because I sew and it's accessible.

What it's really about is taking that thing in their mind and making it real. It's about seeing an idea, turning it over, looking at it from every angle and figuring out how to share it with the world.

They do this in other ways too. They do it with their drawings, their stories, their Minecraft worlds, the small businesses they start, the skits they perform for us, the movies they write, direct, film and edit, the dances they choreograph for family get togethers, and the video game designs and animations they dabble in.

K designed and sewed herself a medieval costume

So while I'd be proud if any of them chose to pursue a career that put the sewing skills to good use, it's not about the sewing. Instead, lets talk about the research, the trial and error the figuring out when to ask for help and when to plow through. Or about setting deadlines and falling short, all the times it goes wrong . The tears and tantrums and try it agains.

Lets talk about that feeling you get when you add that small detail or find the perfect ribbon that makes all the hard work so worth it because the finished product is even better than you ever could have imagined it would be.

L attaching her first zipper, an invisible zipper. A squeal worthy accomplishment.

Yes, I'd much rather, after we build my kids up, filling their buckets with our beautiful comments, if we could then talk about learning how to learn, learning we are capable, learning we'll mess up and it'll still be fine because that right there, the process, that's what it's really about.

Digital Creativity in the (Home) Classroom

As I mentioned yesterday, I recently decided to take some classes from Adobe's Education Exchange. Our first assignment was titled Big and Small and we were asked to use Photoshop to put a small version of ourselves into a picture with a larger version.

Photoshop is my program. I love it and used it for photo editing for years. I am out of practice, however, and the last version I owned is now, over 10 years old. This was a great assignment to help me learn to navigate through the newer versions.

When my son heard me talking about my Big and Small assignment, he excitedly suggested that I make him one of his knights. He loves setting up battles with his action figures. He has even taken photos that play out a stop motion style scene when flipped through quickly. My reasons for taking these courses is to be able to teach my kids, and their friends, to use the programs, so being able to include them in these assignments appealed to me, plus it was a really cool idea, so I went with it.

Our next assignment used Flash. I had never even opened the program before and I got too hung up on creating the artwork which left little time for developing the story. It was fun though, and I was able to show my 12 year old enough to get her started with the program. She has had a lot fun making short animations and I'm so impressed with how much she is learning. This was my animation, the idea for which was decided while doodling with my 6 year old, just before Halloween.

Next up was video, using Premiere Pro. I was very nervous about this lesson. Thinking in terms of video did not come naturally to me, but my kids are fascinated with how movies are made and I knew they would love to help out with this one. Boy was I right. Honestly, I have to give credit for this video to my 12 year old daughter. I wrote some ideas, a rough storyboard, she chucked most of it and added some of her own ideas. Then, she recruited her cousins and little sister to act for her and she video taped all the scenes with my digital camera. I wrote, and she read, the voice over using some feature on my cell phone I didn't realize existed, and then together, late last Monday night, we worked together in Premiere editing, searching for the background music online, and taking photos to fill in where we needed something more. It was so much fun working with her. The assignment was to create a promotional video for your favorite book. This is a family favorite read aloud.


This week we were asked to start a blog, or if we already have one, to write a post about our experience in the class. I have to say that the community that has been created is wonderful and supportive and so much fun. I am having a great time brushing up on programs I haven't used in a while and learning some new ones along with my kids. I hope that these new tools will inspire them in their project work. I am looking forward to the next course, Digital Imaging for Beginners. I suppose I'm not technically a beginner, but the programs have changed a lot in the past 10 years, so I'm sure I'll get a lot out of the course.

Summer Reading

We started listening to the Penderwicks in the car early last week, on the way to gymnastics for one and a walk in the woods for the rest of us. It's a wonderful, funny, summery story about the adventures of four sisters vacationing at a cottage in the country and the boy they meet there. We're finding ourselves looking for more places to go and making up excuses to sit in the car so we can listen just a little bit longer. So good.

I'm re-reading a favorite homeschool/unschooling book, The Unschooling Handbook, one of the first I ever read and a source of great inspiration.

The boy can not wait until he can read it on his own so, I've started reading the Harry Potter Series to him. He just can't stand being out of the loop any longer, and honestly neither can I. Yes, I confess, I've never read them myself.

The middle girl started reading May Bird in bed at night but, learned it was just a little too creepy for her overly active imagination and has decided it is definitely a daytime read. I read it to everyone a few years ago and although I can't remember the details I do remember we all enjoyed it. She has also started Shakespeare's secret (since she needed a night time read) and is loving the 4th book of the Ranger's Apprentice. How she can have so many stories going at once I have no idea.

My oldest is reading Kira Kira She says, "It's good. It's about 2 sisters and they're moving." She's only read through the second chapter, but it sounds promising.

And, the baby girl, who is definitely not a baby, is still in love with her Skippyjon books, thankfully they all come with CD's so she can listen again and again, without me having to loose my voice.

And for the hubs and I our first Patrick Rothfuss on audiobook The name of the Wind.

What's next on the list? I'm thinking we'll join Bird and Little Bird's Read Aloud Book Along. And Jessica makes The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making look too good to pass up.

What's on your reading list? Anything old or new to suggest? I'm giving myself permission this summer to read and read and read for the fun of it and I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do so, don't just keep it to the kids books, although I do love those too.

While I do have an Amazon Affiliate account and, would greatly appreciate the little bump towards school supplies if you choose to purchase any of our suggested books, we found all our copies at the local library. The library is always the first place we look for good books and we'd encourage you to do the same.

Not in a Million Years

This morning I woke and did the, now routine, emptying of the dishwasher while brewing my tea. Right now, I like drinking it on the front porch with a view of the garden, the kid's sand pit and the chicken coop.

It's important, that first cup of tea. It deserves my full attention and I sometimes have to force myself to just relax and enjoy it. It's taken years for me to be okay with the fact that I am not an early or quick riser and, that it's okay to take that extra 10, 15 or 20 minutes every morning to let myself fully wake and prepare for the day. And, today was going to be a day I knew, I'd need that slow start.

So, I sat enjoying my tea, ignoring the nagging voices telling me to water the garden, wake the kids and just start our busy day already.

As I drank my last sip and contemplated taking a few extra minutes to just stay there and soak in the fresh morning air, the chicks decided to pay me a visit. You see, they have figured out that there is an unfenced, poorly tended, little garden growing along the walk leading up to the front porch and, that those tiny pea plants, small tufts of lettuce and ripening strawberries, are quite delicious.

Now, I'm really okay sharing a bit of the harvest with our sweet new pets but, after spending an afternoon with a grumbling 9 year old scrubbing the front porch, because it was covered in chicken poo yesterday afternoon, I was not about to let them anywhere near that sidewalk or my front stoop.

I tried shooing them away with my hands but, they seemed to think I had some yummy offering from the kitchen, I tried scootching them with my foot but, they thought my shoe looked quite interesting and tried inspecting it, I tried shouting at them, they looked at me with blank stares of confusion so, I did the only other thing I could think of. . .

I grabbed the broom left behind from the previous days cleaning and brushed those birdies away like some crazy lady from an old western film. And then, I started laughing (making me look all the more crazy) as I realized that never, not ever, not in a million bajillion years would I ever have thought I would be shooing chickens off my front porch with a broom!

If you had told me just a few short years ago that I would someday be scrubbing chicken poo from my front stoop, or desperately trying to keep a few strawberries, peas and lettuce leaves from those great grandchildren of T-rex, I would have laughed in your face.

To be honest, they kinda give me the heeby jeebies, with those beaks and emerging wattles and claw like feet and, I shriek like a school teacher who has suddenly found a toad in her pocket, when they start flapping those wings.

This chicken thing, it's not my thing.

And that, is the coolest part.

I never thought that by encouraging them to explore their interests now, these kids of mine, would strew my path and make my life so much richer. Because really, not in a million years would I have brought home a box full of chicks, or spent hours watching and learning the finer details and strategies of baseball, or learned to grind stone into shiny jewelry, or read Skippyjon Jones enough times to perfect my Spanish accent (okay, maybe perfect is too strong of a word)

And, I can't help but wonder what other, not in a million years moments, these awesome littles have in store for me.

Hammers and Nails and Shovels, Oh My!

My kids like to dig. A lot. And to build things, or at least, pretend to build things. Most of the time nothing much comes from all the banging and sawing and digging except some banging, sawing and, well, holes of course. It took a couple months but we were able to contain the hole digging to one large sandy area in the front yard at the bottom of the berm separating us from the road. We refer to it as the sand pit. But, the rest of the building occurs wherever and whenever it's needed.

This means, that at any given moment of any given day my yard will be strewn, not with toys, but saws, hammers, nails, boards, shovels and any other dangerous tool a kid could find useful. They are all aware of the need for safety and, for the most part, are trusted to use the tools.

To be honest, I'm never far away. Of course, that does not mean we don't have the occasional smashed thumb or, most recently and most severe, a severed fingernail but, I agree with Gever Tulley, and my own mom, when it comes to kids and tools.

Many, many years ago I called my mom to ask whether she thought my daughter, 3 or 4 at the time, was old enough to use sharp knives, she loved to cook and desperately wanted to help with the chopping, my mom lovingly pointed out that the worst that could happen was that she'd cut her finger, need a few stitches and learn a valuable lesson and she was right, of course.

There is a sense of importance when they use the tools, their play becomes more than play, it's serious business. I love that my kids are comfortable with tools, that they are aware, first hand, of the dangers and listen intently to warnings, even more so since the fingernail incident.

I don't usual think much of this hobby my kids share but, yesterday a man stopped by to survey the house for the insurance company, we had no idea he was coming. The house was a mess and the yard, well, the yard to me is lovely, sprinkled with the things that make us happy and keep us busy. But, to a surveyor for the insurance company? Not so much.

Not only had the kids been happily digging in the sand pit all morning, they had also been constructing a lovely home within it, meaning shovels, rakes, miscellaneous boards and the entire contents of the recycling bin, were everywhere.

My son's recent obsession with baseball means there is always a field set up and what's a resourceful boy to do but use the available scrap wood he finds as bases.

Then there's the "dock" the kids built when their friends visited, the one that's basically pallets stacked on the edge of the pond.

Not to mention the still under construction chicken coop with two by fours tossed under and around waiting to be made into fencing for the run, and all the garden junk I have laying about and oh yeah, there's that swing set in the back that is still waiting to be put back together from the move over a year and a half ago.

I believe the term construction zone was used.

I suppose I knew it was bad, but it all looks so pretty through my rose colored glasses. The kids happily digging and raking in the sand, the boy tossing the ball in the air, swinging his bat and running the bases and the messy garden waiting for me to finish my tea and get back to planting. The coop and run are looking great and only need another solid weekend of attention before they're done and that swing-set, well with a sand pit, a garden and chickens to tend to who can blame us for letting the swing-set go?

I tried not to let it bother me, but it did. The negative voices crept in, "What kind of mother lets her kids use a saw or hammer and nails? I should be ashamed. Why is it I can never keep up with all the messes, inside and out? I must be doing something terribly wrong. These kids should be playing with toys not tools. You should put away all your garden mess even if you're planning to get back to it after that tea break.

I suppose a major yard clean up is in order for this evening, it's wet and rainy and none of us are in the mood but, not everyone can see just how awesome it can be to live in a construction zone and we really wouldn't want to have any visitors get hurt, we'll try to be more careful Mr. Insurance Man and, maybe it's time we start working on that wood-shop we keep saying we'll set up in the garage.

New

Spring has been full of lots of new for us. New friends, new adventures and new responsibilities.

We've ventured further from home than usual, through thunderstorms and chilli Michigan spring weather, to explore towns and cities we've never been to. It is so very wonderful to have adventurous new friends who don't let a little
(or a lot) of rain ruin our plans for exploring.

And, we've been exploring our own back yard in ways we never have before, thanks to those same amazing, adventurous new friends. (Who knew jack-o-lanterns make great pond scoops?) After a year and a half homeschooling and living in this home I feel like we are finally finding our community.

And finally, we've welcomed these little cuties into our home. My middle girl was so thrilled that, even the strangers at the feed store were excited for us and, thanks to these little gals and my girls enthusiasm, our circle of friends keeps growing. Strangers no more, they have been a source of advice and reassurance, on more than just raising chicks.