SFL Series: Get Outside!

I've been thinking a lot about slow family living (SFL) since I posted the first article in the series, and I've felt overwhelmed considering all of the potential topics. Where to begin? Well, I am sitting on my front porch right now, something I haven't done in awhile due to the high temperatures and humidity. Today is cooler, there is a breeze, and it looks like it's going to rain. How I love a summer storm! It's one of the simple pleasures of life.

Even though I haven't enjoyed porch living as much as I would like to lately, I've still forced myself to spend a few minutes outdoors on a daily basis. Sunshine is vital to our mental health and proper working of the circadian system, which promotes good sleep. It's also necessary to get 10 to 15 minutes of sun exposure daily, without sunscreen, to insure that our bodies get enough vitamin D. Fresh air is important, especially if the windows are closed up and you have the air conditioning running day and night. I feel depressed if I am cooped up in the house all day.

Naturally it makes sense when it's very hot and humid to get outside either early in the mornings or to wait until evening. These are also the ideal times to water your garden. I have several container plants and a vegetable garden, so caring for those gets me outside. We also walk our dogs daily. Sometimes I join my daughter at the swimming pool. I like the evening hours best. There are fewer children, so it's easier for a grown up to swim laps. Incidentally, these outdoor activities can be family oriented, a time to enjoy being together while going about the regular routines of life.

My family volunteered to water our parish Rosary Garden every other week, so we often ride our bikes to do that, which provides us with family time, service work, exposure to the beauty of the natural world, and exercise all at once! Time outdoors can certainly be spiritual. It's easy to pray the Rosary while going for a walk.

You don't have to go somewhere special to get outside. Occasional trips camping, going to the beach, or visiting the zoo are nice, and I do recommend them. But try to focus on the simple pleasures of daily life. Create beautiful outdoor spaces where you can eat your lunch, meditate, read a book, even sing! Explore your own neighborhood and say hello to the people you meet. Walk around your yard and pull a few weeds. Take your compost bucket out to dump in the heap. Fill up the bird bath and feeder. Soak in the scent of clover. See what is growing. Cut a few blooms that are fading and make a pretty bouquet in a Ball Mason jar vase.

I have a wonderful upstairs balcony with tree branches so close they almost touch the house. Here I can listen to church bells and watch the birds going about their business.  A little nature goes a long way. We need to find the balance between doing and just being. Spending time outdoors for both can help us to find the center of things.

Fall 2016 Belly Dance Class

La Paloma Gypsy Dance (women ages 15 & up, all body types):

     Join instructor Rita Michele for the art of belly dance, with a Persian and Mediterranean flair! This “Skills, Drills, & Combinations” class is perfect for beginners as well as challenging enough for more experienced dancers. Belly dance is ideal for improving core strength. It tones the entire body and provides a low-impact aerobic workout. Students should dress in comfortable clothing and may dance barefoot or wearing ballet slippers. A scarf tied around the hips is helpful.

     A full warm-up and cool-down is included with every class. Enhance your grace and beauty, and discover the dancer in you!

Classes will run on Thursday evenings for 8 consecutive weeks and will be held at the Community Center on Buffalo Rd. in Bryan, upstairs. A minimum of 6 students is required to hold the class, so please pre-register with the Parks & Recreation office to reserve your space: 419-633-6030.

One session only:

Begins September 29, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Fee is $60.00.

Slow Family Living (SFL): Series Introduction

The increasingly popular slow movement began in the 1980s in Italy with the concept of slow food. This was, as you might guess, a revolution in reaction to the fast food culture. Slow food is prepared using fresh, local, sustainably grown ingredients. Slow food meals may come from your own kitchen or from a restaurant, and they are eaten mindfully and savored. Slow foods are whole foods rather than the standard American processed fare. The sharing of a meal is an intimate act. Food is not meant to be wolfed down on the go.

From slow food, the revolution has grown to include other areas of life, such as slow travel, slow exercise, slow education, and slow family living. The slow movement is the antidote to the modern busyness addiction and plugged in state of affairs. In the spirit of the slow movement, I'm going to keep the posts in this series short, so that you may experience slow blog reading. I hope to chronicle the small steps I am taking toward a simpler, more mindful and meaningful life a little at a time, as I try new things and take the time to see how they work. To simply observe.

The first thing I have done is to deactivate my Facebook account. Yes, again. I have already experienced a profound difference in myself. Maybe it has to do with less screen time. Studies show that too much screen time causes depression. Even if you don't deactivate, try to limit yourself to checking your email and FB accounts only once a day. Dial down your number of groups to as few as you really need to belong to. Shut off your notifications. Pare down your friends list, and stay off the news feed. If you can, take a week totally off Facebook and other social media to detox. Then re-evaluate what you think you can live without.

I hope you will join me on this journey. Simply beginning it has already given me great hope. I ordered a book from the library that I highly recommend--The Lessons of St. Francis: How to Bring Simplicity and Spirituality into Your Daily Life, by John Michael Talbot. I invite you to join me in a slow movement conversation in the comments. We all need a sense of like-minded community. It's best to have this in person, but the internet can be a valuable tool for filling in those "real life" gaps, so let's talk!

A Mother's Master Book

What is a mother's Master Book, you are wondering? This is an idea that was inspired by Colleen Billing at the IHM Catholic homeschooling conference I attended in May. She showed us a 3-ring notebook that she basically uses to organize her life. Inside the front pouch was her "inbox" for one week. She recommended using lined post-it notes for to-do lists. In this book she had a file for each of her children which included medical information, personal documents, savings accounts, birth certificates, etc...

This is a great idea. However, if you are designing a notebook that is potentially going to leave the house with you, it might not be wise to keep very important family documents in it, in the event that you could lose it. I would personally keep those types of things in an accordion file at home, designating a pouch for each child (and each parent). Either way, I agree with Colleen that a great filing system for your home office is mandatory.

My notion for the Master Book is a little different. I really like Colleen's inbox idea, so I adopted that. Incidentally, I put my book together this evening using supplies I already had around the house, and some of it came from having cleared a great deal of clutter in the Terrible Room I mentioned in a recent post. Most likely you will not need to go shopping to create your own Master Book. 

In the left pocket I have my loop schedule for the 1st term of the upcoming school year, as well as my curriculum outline for the year. I tore out the page for July from a calendar. Since I had no lined post-it notes on hand, I slipped in a pad of lined paper. 

Though we are not doing formal lessons for summer, I do want to keep a to-do list for each week and begin to implement my system. For example, I want to go on some nature walks and start keeping a nature notebook for summer. Mother needs to have her own nature journal along with her children, so I have included mine in the back pouch of the Master Book.

The Vera Bradley pouch that you can see in the picture at the top holds drawing pencils, a sharpener, an eraser, a pen, and oil pastels. I know that Charlotte Mason favored dry brush painting for the nature notebook, and I do plan to try that, but for portability the oil pastels are more convenient. 

I have included basic tab dividers and notebook paper for record keeping of our daily lessons for each term. I figure I will begin by taking some notes of summer activities. Even if you don't do formal lessons, much learning still takes place in summer and can be included as part of the year's curriculum. For example, your child may participate in a gardening program through the parks and recreation department (science), take swimming lessons (phys. ed.), or take an art class at the library.

I will periodically post updates on how my Master Book idea is panning out. I'd love to receive feedback from readers in the comments, and please share any similar ideas you have for organizing your homeschool!

The Going Gray Journey

 Cindy Joseph

Hair. It's a hot topic. You might even say it's controversial. I would guess that the only topic discussed with more frequency is the weather. And that's probably because men don't care all that much about hair. Hair is primarily a women's issue. And it's inextricably bound up with age and beauty. Hair defines us as perhaps nothing else does. At the age of 47, I have stopped coloring mine.

This isn't the first time I've tried to go au naturel. Some time in my late 30s I started to grow out the gray, but at a certain point I just couldn't take it. I wasn't ready. I felt that because I was a belly dance teacher, I had a certain image of youth and glamour to maintain. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity...

We hide the truth in vain. It isn't as though people don't know. I can tell when someone colors. Always. And I felt so self-conscious when my roots would begin to show, which was like, three days after I would dye my hair. It just wouldn't stick anymore. As soon as I would shampoo, a little bit of the truth would peek back out. Within two weeks, if I really wanted to keep it up, the roots would need to be touched up again. I usually stretched it out a little further, all the while wondering if people could see the evidence. This is no way to live! 

It didn't matter whether I dyed it myself or had a professional do it. It didn't matter whether the color was permanent, semi-permanent, or came from a health food store. The result was the same. Quick fading and exposure of roots, and on top of that my hair grows fast. Surely I was fooling no one.

It all began when I was 26 and found my first gray hair. In panic, I called my mother, who assured me that I was not suddenly going to turn all gray. It would be a gradual process. I had already been coloring my hair for some time, just for fun. I had always wanted to be a redhead. But with the advent of the gray, I decided that I'd like to see my natural color while I still had the chance. I actually plucked out the few grays as they grew in with tweezers! At some point, this ceased to be an option. The only thing worse than gray hair would be bald spots!!

Ironically, today I believe that hair color causes baldness. A number of years ago I developed a bald spot about the size of a quarter near my hairline. I asked a dermatologist what could have caused it, and he said, "Who knows!" He gave me a cream, which did nothing. Special vitamins also had no effect.

Fast forward to the past year, when I quit coloring my hair altogether. Leading up to that point I had only been touching up the crown and sides, since this could be done quickly, and I don't have much gray growing in the back. Since giving up the dye completely, the bald spot has filled in. Yes, it is filled in with silvery strands, but any hair is better than baldness. Am I right?

In fact, while still coloring, my hair was generally getting thinner. Since it was naturally very dark, I could see more of my scalp when the silver strands (they are white, really) came in, which lead me to go back to using color. Hair dye plumps up the hair shaft, and I figured that the darker hair would make my scalp less noticeable. But lo and behold, since I have let my gray flag fly, I have new hair growth! Yes, it is silver, but any color is better than going bald. Are you following me here? Thinning hair, which eventually will lead to baldness, is not only aging, it's horrifying for a woman. Doesn't the very thought give you chills?

I'm not going to lie to you. The bare truth is, the growing out experience is extremely hard. It's emotional. It's worse than growing out bangs, yet similar. You have to be patient. You have to adjust your hairstyles to hide that demarcation line, to try to make the new hair growing in and the old, colored stuff blend. But at some point a miraculous thing happened to me. I wanted the gray. I craved it. I found two going gray support groups on Facebook, where many brave souls showcase their transition journey with before and after photos.

To my astonishment, all of the ladies who had gone through the entire transition actually looked better as silver foxes than they had as fake blonds, brunettes, and redheads. And it wasn't just the hair itself. It was the woman. In the "after" picture, she always looked more vibrant and confident. Her smile was bigger, her eyes were brighter. Her attitude was notably more confident. These women shined from the inside out.

Colored hair is damaged hair. Period. But isn't the gray hair wiry and unruly? Mine isn't. It's quite lovely, actually. I had grown my hair all the way down my back, and it was one length. I loved the spiral pattern of my curls. But I grew increasingly irritated with the demarcation line and that long rope of faux colored hair. So I added some layers. Then a little more, and that helped. Finally I was ready to make the cut. Several inches came off. It's still below my shoulders, so I am not traumatized. And I can still pull it back, which helps to hide the line between the old and the new.

With a more drastic cut, I could probably have what remains of my dyed tresses gone. But good things come to those who wait. I keep my eye on the prize. My goal is to have very long hair once again, with all of it finally natural. So I'll keep up the trims, continue pulling it up and back and being creative, and one day the new me will emerge like the phoenix from the ashes.

If you are thinking of joining the Going Gray Revolution, I encourage you to just go for it. It may take several attempts before you work up enough courage to go the whole way, as it has for me, and that's okay. And you will likely encounter resistance from others along the journey. Women in the FB groups report being insulted by strangers, hair dressers, dentists, and co-workers; being asked to dye their hair for a friend's wedding; and being harassed by family members. I have heard of women who have literally lost friends over the choice to stop coloring! I am blessed to have a husband who has always been supportive, who has consistently said that he likes the natural silver. Not everyone is so lucky.

What is needed here is nothing short of a paradigm shift. While silver hair has been a trend among celebrities and even teenagers over the last few years, having it happen naturally, and over a certain age, is not so well received. People assume that gray hair is aging, because that's what they've been conditioned to believe. From the photos I have seen, this is simply not the case. Each woman's shade of gray is unique. It's the kind of beauty you can't buy from a box or pay someone to give you. It's God given.

Recently, since cutting off a lot of the colored length, one of my aunts exclaimed that she loved my hair, and she actually wanted to know if it was natural or if I'd had it done that way! I had smoothed it out with a large barreled curling iron, like my hairdresser had done, which showed off the silver better than wearing it curly. The next day at a family reunion, an elder was talking to me about my hair and how the gray runs in the family, when I suddenly blurted out, "Isn't it beautiful?" To which she responded, though a bit surprised, with a "Yes." At 90 years old, she has lovely silver hair herself, which I really looked at for the first time. In the past I would probably not even have noticed her hair. With my paradigm shift, I could really appreciate her beauty.

The more people see of women embracing their natural selves, the more accustomed and comfortable they will be. The thing is, when a woman stops dying her hair, it brings up all kinds of emotions in other people. Sometimes it brings feelings of insecurity and fear to the surface, hostility even. Certain people will think you are crazy. They just won't get it, and it's not your job to make anyone feel better by hiding your head under a crown of pretending. But do have compassion for those who can't let go of the bottle of dye. If they wish to keep living in hair coloring hell, come baldness or high water, that is their prerogative. Just smile, take deep breaths, and stay true to yourself. If we can take this plunge, we can do anything!

Right now there is a definite trend of the Pro-Age Revolution going mainstream, and when you get the itch to give in and run back to the safe haven of hair dye, you can go instead to those brave role models who aren't hiding, but rather are embracing the wrinkles and silvers they have earned.

A Charlotte Mason Morning Basket

When I first began homeschooling, I came up with the idea to place the books we used on a daily basis into a basket. This could be toted around to wherever we were doing our lessons. For the past school year I didn't use the basket, but simply organized the homeschooling bookcase by subject, getting out what books we needed and putting them back on the shelf as we went along.

For the upcoming school year, I'm bringing the basket back! There has been a lot written among Charlotte Mason and other home educators about Morning Time. This is a daily practice of gathering one's children together for shared lessons. When I was a Montessori classroom teacher, with children ages three to six, we had Circle Time to start the morning cycle with the entire class before individual lessons and independent work time began. Same basic idea.

Morning Time occurs at the beginning of the day's homeschooling lessons. It takes on a different flavor in each family. Read alouds with narrations are prominent features. The fine arts--an often-neglected area of study--are given a front row seat. So Morning Time is when picture studies, composer studies, and poetry are explored. Bible reading, devotions, and nature journals are other common elements. It can basically be whatever you want it to be; the idea is to begin the morning with family bonding and restful learning. 

Oftentimes the materials used during Morning Time will be kept altogether in a basket for easy access and portability. Having the Morning Basket will assure that the subjects usually considered as "electives" in the schools but which are key elements in a CM education do not fall by the wayside.

If you go back a couple of posts, you will find my loop schedule for the Fall Term. I added a Morning Basket to the Daily Core. In the Morning Basket category I have listed poetry, music, & art appreciation; dance; and handicrafts. We have been doing picture studies regularly, but music appreciation and handicrafts were spotty. While dance is not a "key" CM subject, Charlotte does include it as important in her writings. My daughter has at times taken ballet classes, and as I am a dance instructor, I have taught her myself. This is a practice to which I want to return. 

I'm planning to extend our Morning Basket to include all of the items in the Daily Core. In addition to the fine arts and handicrafts already listed, the following will go in the basket: literature (King David and His Songs), the Book of Gratitude reader, Spanish materials, and Hamilton's Essentials of Arithmetic. Foreign languages should be worked on daily, and this was decidedly not happening in my homeschool.

To clarify, the specific Morning Basket items, unless they are a part of your own Daily Core, are not all done daily. So for example, you are not trying to work in poetry, music, and art appreciation all in one day. You might read poetry on Monday; listen to classical music on Tuesday; do a picture study on Wednesday; have a drawing lesson on Thursday; and introduce a handicraft on Friday. 

Handicrafts are typically an afternoon pursuit, part of the child's free time after formal lessons finish by 1:00. But I want to put this in the Morning Basket and then encourage Beezy to take it up on her own in the afternoons or evenings and on weekends. 

I'll post pictures of my own Morning Basket when I have all of the items gathered for the Fall Term. Since some of it is going to come from the library, I don't have everything currently on hand. 

Be creative about coming up with your own Morning Time activities. If you are using a traditional Catholic curriculum provider, such as Seton Home Study School or Catholic Heritage Curricula, consider adding a Morning Basket in order to bring classic literature and the fine arts into your schedule. This is one easy way to begin a transition to a more Charlotte Mason style approach!

Summer Declutter

Hear me now, oh, thou bleak and unbearable world
Thou art base and debauched as can be
And a knight with his banners all bravely unfurled
Now hurls down his gauntlet glory
I am I, Don Quixote, the Lord of La Mancha
My destiny calls and I go
And the wild winds of fortune will carry me onward
Oh, whither soever they blow
Whither soever they blow, onward to glory I go!

One of the speakers at the IHM homeschooling conference I attended in May was Colleen Billing, who runs her own company for home organization called Peaceful Interiors. Charlotte Mason wrote that education is "an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life." Atmosphere is a full one third of a child's education. So we can deduce that our homes need to be clean, well-organized, and beautiful. Colleen reminded us that our God is a God of order; that we are created with hearts that crave and desire order. Decluttering our homes is paramount for providing a Catholic CM education!

Home organization is not merely utilitarian; it is spiritual. What we see on the exterior tends to reflect what is going on with the interior life. And we are affected spiritually by the quality of our surroundings. As I have written about before, Marie Kondo, in The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, goes so far as to say that once we have cleared our clutter, we will be able to uncover our life's purpose!

But decluttering takes time, and time is a luxury that many homeschooling families do not possess. Of course, "discipline" comes right after atmosphere in the CM motto, and by discipline Charlotte meant habit formation. With good habits, your children should not be accumulating clutter. They ought to be in the habit of picking up after themselves and keeping their rooms and possessions tidy. Encouraging them to give unused and unloved items to charity is a great practice to instill. In the same vein, we adults need to model good habits. There is one room in my home in which I have failed in this regard dismally.

Colleen suggested that we choose one room and work on it from start to finish. She shared that the average room takes between four and twelve hours to declutter! So if you are wondering why you can never get that Terrible Room under control, most of the problem is likely that you haven't taken enough time to diligently put in the necessary hours.

My Terrible Room is part of the master bedroom suite, separated from the sleeping quarters by a set of wooden French doors. I know, I am a lucky woman! This room contains my husband's dresser and his closet. The rest of it is my stuff. My dressing table, a bookcase, and a cabinet. Multiple storage boxes and 3,000 magazines.

Marie Kondo says that before you can organize anything, you must clear out the clutter. She counsels us to touch each object and ask ourselves, "Does this bring me joy?" That is the entire criteria. Believe it or not, you can do this with books and magazines without even looking inside. Colleen adds that we should question whether we use the object on a regular basis, meaning at least yearly. This criteria can work with items which hold no sentimental value. Luckily sentimental items are the last things that we declutter in Marie's method. Again, the bringing of joy gets the last word.

Colleen recommends designating a specific time to work on decluttering and burying your phone and computer away from yourself. Marie admonishes us to get to it and do it all at once, rather than the proverbial "a little at a time". She promises that if you declutter your entire home in one fell swoop, you will have such great practice in making decisions about what stays and what goes that you will never have to go through this decluttering process again! I would add that we have to keep up those good habits we have established in our children and ourselves. Marie insists that we must begin with our own stuff, and no one else in the family can help us decide. Since most of us are on summer break from homeschooling lessons, the time is now to get it done!

A couple of final notes on the spiritual side of this topic. Colleen recommended John Michael Talbot's book, Simplicity. Our homes are like little monasteries. Monasteries are very simple but very beautiful. Come up with a vision for your home. Go from room to room and write it down. Dream a little bit. She was also very enthusiastic about flylady.net for additional tips.

It might feel like you are dreaming the impossible dream, but perhaps it is, after all, not so difficult so slay that windmill.