A little progress

Have finally finished a few things I have been working on. Last August I decided I would knit baby blankets for three friends who were having babies in the new year. I really didn't expect it to take all of this time but designing is a slightly different kettle of fish to following a pattern. The first blanket (below) took ages. I must have started it  three times before I decided on something I liked and then discovered that all the wools I had chosen was different weights. Lots of increasing and decreasing to keep the edges straight. It took at least 3

months to get the 4 main panels right. Unsurprisingly I'd had enough by then so I had a break and made another blanket, sadly I don't have a picture of that one, and to make some Christmas things. I'd learnt a few lessons about watching the thickness of the wool so that one took a much less time and I used the same idea for this last blanket.

The pattern, roughly was 160 st. Cast onto 7 and a half milimeter needles using double thread baby double knitting. Then established a ten row pattern, 8 rows stocking stitch in the white and two rows in contrast building up a pattern as can almost be seen in the phot. Then knitted a garter stich border on the same sized needles with only one thickness of wool and sewed it all together. It has turned out much bigger than I expected but still very happy with it. It knitted up fairly quickly so I didn'a have time to get sick of it like the other one. Next off the 'to do' list is a floppy scarecrow hat for The Artist in cheap read double knitting, because he almost certainly will never wear it.

Am also very happy with my front garden. I don't often get the chance to do it all in one go, but last Sunday managed a full (if not quite uniterrupted) afternoon of weeding and mowing and above all raking. Not everyone's idea of fun I know but I love it, especially when it looks like this at the end.

It needs a few more plants in but I hope to sort that ouyt soon as I planted a load of seed this afternoon. Rather than out of packets these are seeds I collected last year while out walking the dog so I'm not sure what I will get or even if they will all germinate but As the back garden is currently  abuilding site there is little point planning anything specific, so this is a good year to experiment a bit.

Sunshine and freedom

It's at times like this I feel very very grateful to be home educating. We have just spent a happy three days in the sun; two of them doing outside jobs that needed doing and one day on the beach. Yes we spent Wednesday on the beach at Formby in the sunshine. An ordinary working Wednesday. We sadly watched the school children run down the road, uniformed and carrying 'stuff' while packing up the car with picnics, bats, balls, blankets and loads of 'stuff' of our own which seem, to be compulsory for a trip to the beach even though we rarely use any of it when we get there.

We did all the usual stuff, paddled in the sea (no it really isn't warm enough but I have to put my feet in the sea on principle whenever we go to the beach0, sat and chatted, played a new game we have called trac ball, drew pictures in the sand and collected shells. Most of all the kids vanished into the sand dunes, disappearing for a couple of hours at a time into some imaginary world that we adults were not part of. Not only is this very freeing on a work day (if a little sad without hard working DH) but there is something wonderful and freeing about a bunch of almost teenagers still willing to become lost in imaginary games. The music man turne 13 last week and I don't suppose many thirteen year olds even run round let alone with a stick, wooden cross bow and a head full of imagination. There is also something freeing about sitting on a beach with my friends talking about everything and nothing,while the rest of the world pities us for the hard time we have without breaks for our children. How do we cope?!

Freedom is one of the most importatn gifts we can give each other, after love it is possibly the most important, freedom to love, play, rest, work, pray, live, love and learn OR not to do any of those things. If nothing else our Home education journey gives us as a family, rather than me as an individual, freedom.

Unexpected Day

Isn't it funny how some days just smack you in the face? Sometimes good, sometimes bad but always unexpected.

As you might guess from the title, today has been that kind of day. A good friend of mine invited me on a course. This friend has been attending a 'night class' on meditation; learning how to meditate, how to relax, breathing techniques etc. So when he invited me and a couple of friends along to a one day workshop I thought that is what we would be doing. 

What we actually did was write. And it was fantastic!

I have been doing prayer/meditation/ spitritual journey excercises for at least 10 years now if not longer, and I know that you ALWAYS get something from the time you put in. However, I have never been to a secular course before. Previously courses and workshops have been within the framework of organised religion so I was curious to see how different a secular course would be.

The answer was - no different at all except that the word God was replaced with higher power, or creator, or higher self. It seemed to me to be a lot of pussy footing around the word; trying to say God without frightening people away. I am all for bringing people closer to God and if that must be done without using the word, then as far as I am concerned that is all to the good. It is just a little bit sad that people see God in such a negative light; a product, no doubt of years of bad theology, consistently negative press and a vague feeling that belief in God is somehow weak or hypocritical in someway.

I got an awful lot out of the day, much of which is too private to share here. It is enough to say my dissatisfaction with the education system is entirely justified. As well as writing (uninterupted for an hour) and battling negative thinking, we had a lovely lunch, played hopscotch, laughed and grew together as a group of friends. After some revelations about the sources of our negative thinking we were encouraged to do three things which I would like to share here, just in case anyone might one day find them useful.

1) Write a positive statement about who you are. NOT who you would like to be but who you are now, in the present moment. And then write it out agan 20 times.
2) Journal everyday. In the morning or at a time of day when you are at your best, sit down with a blank journal and write. Write anything that comes into your head - a stream of conciousness and eventually it will change you. People of faith call this prayer but the label is unimportant.
3)Once a week you need to take yourself on a date. Just yourself. Not with a partner, child or friend. Even walking the dog does not count. Just you. A treat that is just for you doing something that brings you joy, for no other reason than it brings you joy.

That is why we played hopscotch.

And when we got home we ate good food and played kerbie something I haven't sone since I was a little girl.

So why did I not expect any of this? I don't know is the short answer. Because I haven't learned maybe? even after ten years I still forget that time put into yourself is time that will always be repaid. So I am off to write my list of twenty

getting started

It seems like I have been thinking about this for ages. Starting a blog that is. I have procrastinated for at least 6 months. Who would read it? What will it be about? Why do a blog? Am I just showing off to a wider world that doesn't really care? Will anyone ever read it? Does it matter if they do? In the end I have no answers to any of these questions, just a need to write. I have been writing for as long as I remember, mostly spirirtual journaling and always for myself. I rarely show people what I write because I write to clarify my thoughts, to get a handle on what I am thinking and feeling, the direction my life is taking in all it's mundane complexity. Not the kind of thing I am likely to publish on 'tinternet.

So what will I write.

Well I don't know yet. On one level I want this blog to be a record of the things I do with my family and our friends; a record of our home education journey and my own journey in faith; a record of our acheivements and a celebration of who we are our impact on the world around us. Now I am not suggesting that we are world movers and shakers, far from it, but all of us impact the world around us through those we love and the choices we make, no matter how insignificant they may seem. All of us are journeying and, hopefully, growing. Hence the title of this blog. Growth in faith, growth in love, growth in experience, growth through challenge and just by spending time in good company.

On another level I want to explore my abiltiy to write, I guess to 'find my voice' as authors interviewed on radio 4 seem to describe it. I did  consider doing some kind of challenge and blogging about that (as in Julie and Julia), to give the whole thing some purpose and to help me keep up the discipline of posting regularly, but in the end I did not want a project that would dominate my thoughts, just quiet place that maybe a few friends would drop in on from time to time. Of course I have to learn how to use it and that may be challenge enough as this has taken an hour so far and I still don't know how to add a profile!!! As for pictures - maybe in another 6 months I will have a go.