More and more reading

Jasmine's reading skills have been exploding lately. Today for the first time I found her reading a book to herself. Later she made a cozy nest behind the armchair and filled it with books. I am really enjoying her process towards being a reader. She's been checking out piles of readers from the library every now and then for about a year. They sit on the shelf for several weeks and then I take them back. Today she checked out a pile of readers from the library and started reading them to me before we even left the library. The turning point for her seems to be that when reading became easy enough for her to add dramatic expression into it, reading became fun.


I've been ordering workout videos from the library that are dance oriented (e.g Sizzling Salsa, Ballroom Body Blast, Tahiatian Hip Hop etc) and trying them out. It's been really hot and since swim team is over for the year I haven't been working out at the community center. So far Jazz and I have loved one of them-- The Goddess Workout: Intro to Bellydance. Jazz did the whole thing with me. She also led me in a workout of her own design.

My workout instructor

And sometimes a girl has to dress up in the lovely silk dress Grandma brought from China.

I've still been doing a lot of spiritual work but as I've been writing blog posts after the fact, I write about what I have pictures of. I'm feeling called to explore EFT. I've started playing with it a bit from stuff I found on the Web and have ordered books from the library. It's not something that has called me before but makes perfect sense right now. I am totally ready to move into a new glorious life but....I find myself stuck mostly by habitual thought. I'm ready for a steamroller.

Manifesting a Move--Here we come, Ashland OR

I'm manifesting a move to Ashland OR and both Jazzie and I are super excited. This has prompted bringing out atlases and Jazz has been enjoying looking up the maps of different states and cities she knows. The learning never stops.

Ashland has all I dream about: a bike friendly smaller community (21,630 residents) with lots of people into the same things as I am. There's a food co-op that is promoting and providing local foods, farmer's markets twice a week, a Unity church and Course in Miracles groups, a raw foods community, three community gardens, a Waldorf school and a public school that caters exclusively to homeschoolers (you can take individual classes or as many as you want). Willow Wind Community Learning Center has a market garden run by it's students. I've dreamed of Jazz being involved in a market garden like this with other homeschooled children.

Ashland also has a children's theater for Jazz and a strong homeschooling community. The climate is nice; not as cold and wet as most of the Western coast. And outdoors opportunities abound with bike paths, beautiful parks, rivers, creeks, lakes, mountains and big trees. It's close to the coast, the redwoods, and Crater Lake. I can hardly imagine anything nicer. Oh and I forgot U-pick organic berry farms in the area (can't tell I'm missing fresh picked berries). The only downside so far is Oregon has stricter homeschool requirements (Arizona doesn't have any). In Oregon, homeschool students are required to take the AIMS tests but I'm definately not going to do anything differently or worry about the tests.

I've been collecting pictures to create a picture collage of things we love in Ashland as a vision board. When I complete it I will post it here. Until then, here's some...

Ashland has an absolutely gorgeous park with lots of natural areas and a swimming hole and trails leading up into the mountains.

Lithia Park, Ashland

Ashand is most famous for it's huge Shakespearean Festival every summer and fall and also for it's art scene (esp theater and the visual arts).

Elizabethian stage at the Shakespeare Festival, Ashland OR

Lakes abound around Ashland. The closest one is 5 miles away and has a huge water slide and a campground and picnic area.

Agate Lake

Jazzie is cooking

Jasmine has decided to start cooking whole dinners. This is her second this week. Earlier this week she bought some potatoes and onions from the little farmer's market at our CSA pick-up. She's been selling basil from our garden and so had cash in hand. That evening, she made mashed potatoes, sauted onions, green beans, and a salad with tuna, feta cheese. and olives. It was delicious.

Today she is expanding her cooking skills dramatically. A couple of days ago I let her know we could watch You Tube cooking videos about anything she wanted to cook. She choose home-made macaroni and cheese and Challah. She had me write down the recipes and called Mari and Jewel and invited them to dinner, Wednesday (today) evening. Today she did it. She made Challah, homemade macaroni and cheese, green beans, a fruit salad, a Caesar salad, and a bowl of cherries. Isn't she just amazing! And just as I am so tired of cooking and was manifesting some help in this area.

Braiding the Challah

Brushing the Challah with egg white


The spread (including a black-eyed pea dish Mari brought)

Our company came and enjoyed the delicious dinner and then we all played 7 Days in Europe and had a wonderful time.

I'm back

Jazz's swim meet went well--she came within a second of winning the IM-- and we came back from Tucson with a case of young Thai coconuts (I've really been craving them) and lots of collaging stuff.





The electricity went out last Sunday afternoon and didn't come on again until Tuesday morning. As the lows were about 90 and the highs close to 110 it was an experience. We hosed off the porch on Monday morning as it needed cleaning after chickens and some construction work on the street in front of house. We then turned on the mister and sat and enjoyed playing UNO until the mail lady came by and told us it could be up to 7 days before the power came back on. Apparently there was a huge storm north of Gila Bend and somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 power poles were snapped in two. Wow! Well we moved into emergency preparedness zone and picked up some of the free dry ice they were handing out for the refridgerator and freezer, ate up our ice cream, and went to check on a house-bound neighbor. What a hot adventure! The power came on the next morning thanks to the hard work of the APS crew and I have been appreciating air conditioning like never before.

An Egyptian princess surviving the heat with misters

(I've been reading The Royal Diaries: Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile-57 B.C. to her)

Since then my computer time has been spent binging on a couple of e-mail lists. I'm a member of the radicalunschoolingwithLOA and have been for a while but I haven't checked in on them for many months. I love this group and through my perusing this week I found another group that is a breakoff group from the RU/LOA called Unschoolingmiracles. How simply beautiful. I am so greatful for finding this group. More than once I have done a search for "unschooling, A Course in Miracles" and never really found anything and now a whole group of wonderful people I completely admire. Thank you universe.

It is especially very timely because this week I have been really putting time into letting go of limiting thoughts and beliefs. This has been a topic on the list and I feel less alone in this adventure and learned of a new process that really spoke to me--The Presence Process by Michael Brown. I just ordered his book from the library and also 2 others inspired by the list Arnold Patent's You can have it all and Joe Vitale's Zero Limits, which I was able to get on CD. Here's to listening while I create a Space of Love within my home.

Here's a few neat things that came my way this week:

A Mathematician’s Lament by Paul Lockhart A mathematician laments the way Math is taught in schools. Really good read. Well at least the first page that I read and I do want to finish it sometime soon.

This is a very well done short documentary on the history of schooling in our country.



And another fun movie, this is some absolutely beautiful sand art.



Yesterday was Learn Nothing Day, a holiday to show how hard it is to actually not learn anything. For an amazing post on Learn Nothing Day, go here.

Info on SoulCollage®

I just received an e-mail from the folks at SoulCollage® asking me to include the registered trademark symbol, to honor Seena B. Frost by acknowledging her as the developer of the SoulCollage® process, which includes the concept of collaging a deck, the structure of the deck, and the use of the "I Am One Who..." exercise with the cards, and to include the following things.

SoulCollage® cards are not to be sold, traded, or bartered; they are to
be reproduced only for the personal use of the maker of the card.
SoulCollage® cards may be shared as examples to illustrate the SoulCollage®
process, but it is a principle of SoulCollage® that SoulCollage® cards are
not for sale, trade, or barter. [from “The Principles of SoulCollage®]

SoulCollage® is a registered trademark of SoulCollage®, LLC. The SoulCollage® process is described in Seena B. Frost’s book, SoulCollage®
www.soulcollage.com/book/soulcollage-book.php

More information about SoulCollage® can be found at http://www.soulcollage.com/

And a link to the Principles of SoulCollage®.
http://www.SoulCollage®.com/home/principlesofSoulCollage®.php

I also have links to other stuff on a previous post.

The neatest part of this process is the "I am the One Who..." exercise which I have not yet done with my cards but am excited about doing when the time comes. Here's a link to this exercise.

getting ready for big day in city

Today we are cleaning and preparing food to get ready to go to Tucson (130 miles away) to go to Jazz's swim meet and do some shopping. We took breaks to play Go Fish and play with chickens and harvest more squash.

Jazz's reading skills are increasing and today she read to me and to grandma from Little Pear (a cute book about a boy in rural China at turn of century). When she figures out a more difficult word on her own she gets so excited she squeals and kisses me over and over. It is so fun to participate in this sheer joy of learning that could never happen within the school system.

I am crazy about SoulCollage®

This is what happens when a person stays up all night collaging. I've been eating mostly-over 90% living food-and the detox symptoms are calming down and I have lots of energy. I feel vital and alive a lot of the time and I wonder why everyone isn't doing this.

These first five cards are my first SoulCollage cards. I just jumped in and made them. I didn't know the "official" size so mine are 4"X6" which is considerably bigger than the ATCs (2 1/2"x3 1/2") that I've been making. Only the first one has a title so far.

Abundance

Some images wanted to go on a smaller size card so two ATC-size cards got made too. Aren't they beauties.

These SoulCollage cards kept coming--late at night, while Jazz was at camp--I kept making SoulCollage cards. I didn't blog although the house is slowly getting cleaner. Actually doing art is helping me to keep on cleaning house, preparing food, and generally running a household.

And these little ATC size cards keep popping up here and there too.

I realized these would make nice gifts--little wallet sized cards with inspirational quotes.

And life did keep happening at our house. Eggs got laid. Food got prepared. Parties attended.

Our girls have laid their first dozen eggs now.

The food dehydrator has been busy. Besides finishing up the saguaro fruit, I did another tray of tomatoes and lots of sweet potatoes. The sweet potato chips go fast at our house. They are so delicious. This time I added lemon pepper and they are even better than ever.

We attended a birthday party and what kind of birthday party do you have when temps are in the triple digits?--one at night with lots of water play.

Playing fill the bucket

Other updates:

I am still training for my first 5K run and getting better every day.

I am still doing A Course in Miracles although much slower than intended. The lesson I'm on now I've been doing for four days (they are daily lessons). Lesson 20 involved remembering the lesson twice an hour and after four days I am remembering it several times a day. It takes what it takes.

I have not started The Artist's Way but I've been doing Art.

I'm eating mostly--at least 75%--local food. In fact, it's what I want; food with vital energy. Things I used to eat don't appeal to me. An example is the packaged Earthbound Farms organic spinach. It does not have the vitality that I now want in my body. I am so thankful to be on this path.

I have not been using shampoo or conditioner in my hair for a couple months (see my post No-poo and more) and mostly it is pretty fabulous. I am washing it with baking soda and then rinsing with apple cider vinegar every week to 10 days.

Jul 12-Play, play, play, art, art, art!!!

Jasmine's friend, Devin, came over for the afternoon and so much wonderful play occurred; playing the piano, making ATCs, sword fighting, playing with the chickens, imaginative play with Jazzie's doll house, blowing bubbles. It was over too soon.

,

Playing the keyboard

Sword-fighting

Blowing bubbles

Another ATC by Jazzie

Jazz lost a tooth at the swim meet and since we have a very forgetful tooth fairy who did not come to get the tooth last night, Jazz decided to make a gift for the tooth fairy--a miniature ATC.

Jazz's miniature ATC on the tooth fairy pillow

I spent some time while the chillens were playing cutting out more collage pictures for my new project. And then this evening I went crazy, I stayed up all night collaging. Pictures tomorrow.

Swimming and SoulCollage

This morning, Jazz had another swim meet, her second of the season. In the last meet, she entered two events. This meet, she entered six events, every one she was eligible for, including the IM (Individual Medley) which consists of swimming 200 yd--50 yard of each different stroke; back, butterfly, breast, and freestyle. She swam strong in every race although she didn't win many. This evening she complained of sore muscles. She is such an athlete, pushing herself because she loves it.

Jazz swimming the butterfly

Swimming the backstroke

This afternoon I had another experience of turning on the computer to do one thing and within a couple minutes I'm somewhere else--exactly where I need to be. I discovered SoulCollage--making collaged cards that reflect different parts of one's self. I've been engaged in making ATCs this week but I'm finding the small size-while it has some pluses-is beginning to be limiting and I keep doing all these spiritual cards. SoulCollage sounds exciting and fun to me and I'm definately going to try it tomorrow. I've already ordered the book from the public library, (SoulCollage : an intuitive collage process for individuals and groups by Seena B. Frost) and also another interesting sounding book; Collage for the Soul : Expressing Hopes and Dreams through Art by Holly Harrison and Paula Grasdal.

Here's some links to info on Soulcollage:

Soulcollage The website of the woman who started it all and wrote the Soulcollage book.

kaleidosoul Another fun website on SoulCollage

Inner Surprises- A gorgeous blog on SoulCollage cards.

Today I spent time preparing food. I've noticed a certain rhythm developing in my life. One day of mostly cleaning etc and the next of mostly creativity. I'm glad to have beautiful food ready to eat tomorrow as I begin a new project.

Another Glorious Creative Day

We started the day whipping the house into some kind of shape to the music Brazillance! The Music of Rhythm. And then to our shaving cream marbled paper project. Here's a link to directions. Jazz did it all by herself and loved every moment of it it......

Adding food coloring to the shaving cream

Pressing the paper into shaving cream

Paper taken off with shaving cream still on.

Some of the final paper

...but this shaving cream stuff is absolutely fabulous!

I made collaged watercolor ATCs.

Jazzie's ATC--she wanted a poem on hers, too, so she made one up.

Jazz worked on ATCs for awhile and then played with some of her beads. Jasmine has always been able to create whole worlds from any material available. She can play for hours, creating characters and dramas. Here is a church, modeled after the one Grandma attends that she created from the beads.




I still haven't been up to carrying the load of the household alone so I solicited Jazz's help with the laundry