Small Town Homesteading

This being the last day of July, it will soon be time to get "back to school" and to a more structured daily routine.  My husband, a college professor off work for the summer, will begin teaching again in a few weeks.  I spent some time ordering books from the library today on rainforests, which will be our first science unit for this homeschooling year.  I also have two Ginn Basic Readers that I ordered from Ebay.  Beezy, now 8 years old, loved the 12-book Dick and Jane series, and I wanted to find something similar with which to continue.  This is especially because other readers had failed to interest Beezy, and I want her to love to read.  The Ginn books have a similar, repetitious style and old-fashioned illustrations, being from the same era as Dick and Jane. 

Fall is also typically designated as a season of new beginnings, even though it's the last season of the year.  It's a time of vibrant, visible change in the natural world, a celebration of the harvest, and a time of turning inward in preparation for the coming days of darkness.  There is a magical whispering of possibility and mystery in the air.  So I am naturally starting to contemplate things I want to do differently.  The end of summer boredom and restlessness is starting to settle in already, maybe because spring came so early this year.  

I changed the look of this blog today and tweaked the topics to reflect my new focus: Charlotte Mason homeschooling, small town homesteading, belly dance, style & beauty, and sacred living.  Not all is completely new.  For instance, I have been using the Charlotte Mason homeschooling method since the beginning, but I also used a lot of Montessori.  This year there will be less emphasis on the Montessori Method and more emphasis on Charlotte Mason's living books, narration, nature notebook, and other elements of her method.  I want to spend way more time exploring the natural world, and I want to incorporate hand crafts.  I loved latch hook kits as a child, and I am going to introduce them to Beezy this year.  I also want to continue her sewing lessons with her great-grandmother.

I desire a deepening of the homesteading way of life for my family as well.  But I find that when we get these wonderful visions in our heads, we want to overhaul everything and make radical, sudden changes, which usually don't pan out.  So I'm simply going to start with baking my own bread and pizza crusts this fall, and I have an aunt that wants to teach me to crochet.  Baby steps on the homestead!  I want to take family bike rides in the evenings, and hopefully we'll have a good tomato crop this year for making my husband's awesome homemade sauce.  

Here's to the joy of beginning fresh plans, dreaming a little dream, and keeping it simple--and then reaping the grand harvest of the organic life!