Thoughts about the day

I am grateful today for the lovely weather, and for not having been in the path of a tornado yesterday. My gratitude makes me much more patient than I have been for the last few days, and motivated to make my house look a little less as if it has been hit by a tornado (which, just to reiterate, it hasn't). I would like to be in the position, should the occasion occur, to offer hospitality to anyone who might need it following yesterdays storms. Yesterday I could easily envision all of my clutter rising into the air and adding far more to the mess of destruction than any one house has the right to do. The thought that I do not keep up well with the house makes me feel inadequate and grumpy. But also the universe has been sending me the message, "You are enough," and as I go about my day, doing a lot of work of various kinds, but not managing to keep up with the clutter, I try to keep that message in mind, to do my best and to acknowledge that I am, in fact, doing a lot in this multifaceted life of household manager, cook, and homeschooler, and that perhaps no one, and certainly not I, can do it all.

I took my patience into a nice morning. We cancelled plans for a fieldtrip today due to evening sports commitments, and as a result I would have a full fledged mutiny on my hands if I tried to assign tablework. Instead we sat outside and read The First Book of Birds and had a great Nature Sit (that's like a nature walk, but without the perambulation). I have mixed success with nature walks, and today's version worked well. By sitting fairly still, we managed not to scare all the wildlife away! We saw a bluebird in the backyard (and I have never seen one here before, and it makes me happy), and a woodpecker that was probably a Northern Flicker. We noticed other birds and watched a robin take a bath in the sandbox cover. We saw chipmunks and squirrels and had a good conversation about birds, using the Cornell site to look at bird shapes. There were no time limits, and no pressure to be done and move on to something else so we could continue as long as it seemed there was interest.

When people ask if we do science and history and whatever other subjects, this is the type of day that I can't quite use in my answer, but that best describes why we homeschool. Learning unfolds in these hours, but not in a way that falls into the traditional paradigm. This type of learning is vastly underrated, but in my opinion, it is some of the best.