And Other Things

I have three clipboards of lists- one clipboard for the studio, one for homeschool, and one for "life". My lists include menu plans, calendars for the next three studio years, future knitting projects, the second grade booklist I'm working on building, the recital list for this year, and the most important list of all... our list titled Direction.


It's our goals for the year. These are goals by and for everyone in the family because most of all what I want for our home is reationship and community. Everyone's opinions and efforts are valuable and helping each other accomplish what we set out to do builds that community.


This list isn't complete (it never has been- sometimes you don't know what is important to you to get done until September...) but it gives us the direction for our year so that we move together into the new year. Some of it is vague or pretty obvious, but *I* like having it down on paper. Not everything will happen, but we'll work toward everything as we can.

The first third of our year is already pretty full, taken up with packing and moving and baby having. The months following that have a very distinct "nothing" planned as we get to know the newest member of our family, and then in the early fall we move into another official school year, this time with two official students.


Mostly I'm sure much of my year shall be spent on getting the new house to become OUR house and creating new learning and making areas there. I am *excited* about our new learning area at the new house! No longer will we be stuck in a room far off from the action, but our school day will be close to the most important room for our family- the kitchen.


I have a far-off and lofty dream of being unpacked within 6 months of the move (hey- it's a goal, okay? You can stop laughing...) but I will have a new baby just two months after the move, so we'll see how that one turns out.


I'm planning to re-establish our usual eating habits. Over the last several months of time spent at the hospital, then hospice, then away from our home as we help my father-in-law adjust to being on his own for the first time in 40 years, our eating habits have been horribly disjointed. We'll be moving again soon and after the move we plan to get back to our normal pattern of homemade food, eating in season and fresh as much as possible.


We have a family project in the works- something to last through the year, finding places for old traditions and maybe adding something new as the new house becomes our new home.  More to come in this space as we work on this in the coming months.




The boys have big plans to try out soccer and basketball this year, but of course to still play baseball in the summer. Ender endeavors to be outside "pretty much all the time" and Ezra has plans for some serious art work, including making a whole book.


And my husband? Well, he's talking about going back to school for a third time... maybe this fall, maybe not. We'll see how that one turns out.




For the most part we're planning a pretty quiet year- mostly getting used to the changes from the first part and re-establishing ourselves as we set up in a new place and add another little one. I'm taking a lot of time off from the studio when baby girl gets here and totally resetting my work schedule in the fall... It's a lot of change in one year, but I can't even explain the excitement behind it, particularly knowing that this is a big step forward toward the intentional life we've been building.