Natural Attachment

May 15, 2010

Spring at Last, Spring at Last

Finally, Spring is in full effect here in the ‘burgh.

We’ll be having Pancakes at Midnight tomorrow night to kind of kick things off, if you will.

I’ve got seedlings who need to get into the ground.

We’re working on getting some poorly placed and unsightly bushes removed to make way for some blueberry bushes and a nice little sitting area, complete with bench.

We are stashing money to attend the Northeast Unschooling Conference. My in-laws might actually be joining us this year — will be great for them.

We’ve completely rearranged the first and basement floors of our house to suit our needs better. The flow of the house is SO much better now. The second floor is going to have its time at well, but not quite yet.

I’ve been contemplating what needs to be done out in our backyard to start to set up a permaculture garden and forest (to incorporate the small white pine forest that we already have).

I am becoming more and more in love with the concept of yardsharing. I have some lovely friends who might be game for sharing yard space and or having produce swaps.

We signed up for a different CSA this year. Instead of going through Kretschmann’s Farm, we’ll be going through Penn’s Corner Farm Alliance. We just wanted to try something different this year and save a little money in the process. I’m sure I’ll be doing my best to take and post pictures of our weekly shares.

I am going to try to start having unschooling park dates again, but over at Brighton Heights Park and not up in Sewickley. This park is just up the hill on Benton Avenue from our house on Parviss Street. It just got too difficult to organize transportation to make it to Sewickley once a week, among other reasons for me stopping the meet-ups last year.

Elijah has been using WarioWare D.I.Y. to make a bunch of microgames. He’s becoming quite the game designer between D.I.Y. on his DS and Little Big Planet level editor for PSP.

Elijah has also found a love for the periodic table of elements…I hung one up and he’s been looking at and studying it ever since!

I’ll be selling some of my handmade goodies and clothing at a neighbourhood flea market on Saturday, June 5th.

Our street (3800 block of Parviss Street, 15212) will be having it’s street-wide yard sale on Saturday, June 26th.

We’ll be hosting the 2nd Annual Ice Cream Social Warfare at our home again this Summer on Sunday, June 27th and we hope to see you there!

Back in April, we went to Oklahoma City, OK to visit friends and family that we haven’t seen in almost 5 years. It was nice to see people, but I don’t miss the place at all…I’m quite at home here in the ‘burgh.

There’s more. There’s always more :-)

Clip to Evernote

June 30, 2009

Bits & Pieces & No Hugging

Dress up is always evolving around here. It comes and it goes. The latest installment is Elijah as DJ Lance Rock of Yo Gabba Gabba.

DJ Lance Rock

DJ Lance Rock

DJ Lance Rock -- some more

DJ Lance Rock -- some more

We also revisited a gift from Great-Grandma from awhile back. We made snakes.

snake

snake

There are always battles going on over here. Lately, beating each other silly with cardboard tubes is where it’s at…

on guard

on guard

Then there was that whole street-wide yard sale. All the houses on our street decided to have yard sales on the same day. It turned out fairly well. Despite the rain threatening to drench us all it was a great day. The best part was having all the neighbors out and seeing each other visit, swap and have fun. One neighbor even brought out the grill and started grilling up food to sell and for the other neighbors…but she’s just awesome like that anyway :) Alas, no pictures.

On Sunday we had our First Annual Ice Cream, Jazz, Water Balloon/Gun and Champagne Fun Fest. We opened our house to pretty much anyone and everyone. It was a success. People of all ages and backgrounds came to hang out, pig out and make friends. Our first visitors showed up a little after two and the last visitors excused themselves around 9:30 or so. We still have SO MUCH ice cream it is sickening! The good news, is that we won’t have to buy it for awhile :)

I learned that I am not the person to fill up water balloons, because I turn them into deadly weapons. Apparently, you are supposed to fill them up really full, which I didn’t do and unless you were line-driving them into people, they wouldn’t pop. Next year, I will recuse myself from that duty and we’ll just stick to buckets, cups and squirt guns. I have to say that it was really fun despite my death bombs!

Again, alas, there are no pictures. I am beginning to think I have a problem. Is there a way to surgically affix a camera to one’s self?

I managed to get 13 seedlings/plants in the ground in our home garden after picking up the yard yesterday. Hopefully, they will make it and we’ll be eating more from our yard soon. I wasn’t on the ball this year for some reason. I think I have just been so overwhelmed with all the BIG things we’ve been planning and getting ready for and the ones that we’ve already adventured through.

And last, while pretending to be DJ Lance, I told Elijah more about how school children are not being allowed to share in the human experience by way of hugging. Here’s his reaction in a photograph:

really, are you kidding me? no hugs? people are weird mum.

"really, are you kidding me? no hugs? people are weird mum."

Really!?! I mean really? (thank you Seth Meyers) No hugging? At what point are you allowed to be human at school? Wait, at no point, because that would mean that your autonomy would be respected and you could think critically and realize that you’d be much better off living and learning in the REAL WORLD and not in a brick box only reading about the Real World all day.

Ban hugging in school? Is it wrong that I totally agree with the little story in the beginning of this…”Well,” said the mother. “You did what you felt like doing — and so did he.” Don’t just think you can hug my son — try asking or waiting for him to make the move.

You There! No Hugging!

Where Students Can’t Hug

I say, all these tight-ass school board types need some Free Hugs, because obviously they are deprived of human touch and love.

Clip to Evernote

"Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it." ~ Brene Brown