Advent--ure Ahead?!

Nov 30, 2011

Mood: scrambling, if you can call that a mood!


So What's the Haps?


I am typing quickly in hopes of finishing before the Boo-man's bus pulls up in front of the house. It's a hectic afternoon with AWANA tonight.
It's already the last day of November! I am behind a tad with schooling as there has been both illness and some vehicularly-related turmoil in the house.

Rather than recount all that, first I shall speak of how quickly the Twirly is growing up. She has reached the Steiner milestones of being able to reach over
her head and touch her ear.

She has also had her first visit from the Tooth Fairy!

This is her little Tooth Fairy Box:

What I am contemplating this December Eve (as in Night Before December) is Girl Scouts....no not in the way you think!

I am not thinking about joining her up with GSA. My opinion of GSA and indeed the parent world org and its
pro-abortion agenda remains unaltered. It's just that as satisfying as GEMS and Keepers at Home both are as programs,
I am finding them both sorta falling short as scouting-alternatives in terms of scouting.

 Some time back I found at a thrift store a book title Pixie Scouts. It turned out that before there were Daisy Scouts,
there were Pixie Scouts (based on stories that are rooted and intertwined with stories used back when Brownies, now termed
Girl Scout Brownies were first created). Later the group was changed to Daisy Scouts to honor one of the initial GS founders
from way back when. Anyway, I loved the name and activities in the book and had hoped to use some of them as Hearth Keepers
activities (before our group broke up due to too many time conflicts for the fellow moms.)

I also could not shake the idea of having the Twirly-Whirly scout (verb here, not noun). But of course actual GSA was out of my
ethical and spiritual bounds. Sooooo...there I am poking around on eBay looking for other Pixie Scout info. And what I turned up
was a bunch of really cool badges/patches that used to be used by Canadians Brownies (and almost all Brownie Scouts I later learned).
They were cute little things so along with bidding and winning some I started looking for other info and items related to vintage
Girl Scouting (the way Lord Baden-Powell envisioned....as a die hard fan of BSA and former Scout leader I think he and his wife etc
would be appalled at the way it's turned.)

I have decided, using books, patches, some clothing, of the good ole days to scout with Sara as a homeschool patrol, if you will, much
the many brick-and-mortar schools, public and private, have mascots and school spirit programs and what-not. We will be true "lone
scouts". I toyed with saying Rogue Scouts but that makes it sound like we went Robin Hood or such and that's not quite it...not quite. ;)

So I have begun collecting things...some easily, some doing a bit of battle with actual collectors (I intend to use what I buy!) In fact some
of the books etc arrived today while I was still writing this blog. They are so cool! Did you know Brownie leaders in the UK Girl Guides used
to be called Brown Owls? I even found a Brown Owl patch! (We will have sashes for some badges....perhaps even a "brag vest" for activity
patches. I also toyed with getting a vintage Brownie uniform but since we're doing this as part of homeschooling she would have to wear it
nearly every day. I know some homeschool moms have their kids wear uniforms with their school logo on them, but that would be too strict
for me. I wouldn't mind wearing one to school or a job but not around the house. The idea of one for field trips or such might not be a bad
idea though.)

Anyway, I am stoked! The pixies, fairies, brownies, owls themes all work well with our very fairy/nature-oriented homeschooling. I am not certain
what to call our little "group" tho....lol...there are some Cub Scout patches using the term Gnome Patrol! LOL! But we will be exploring more than
gnomes....so that's why I don't want to say that exactly...or pixie or brownie exclusively. Might be uncreative and just say Acorn Cottage Scouts.
We'll see.....

Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose...but it's okay!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Mood: lol....not certain!

Sometimes you win;sometimes you lose, but it's okay...

or so Yo Gabba Gabba tells me!


I'm glad cus it's certainly been two steps forward, one step back for a couple of months now. Every time we get close to what I had hoped for this school year, we get bounced off sideways some, be it ant attacks, rough mornings, etc etc. One thing I definitely plan to do is look at more streamlining for the next trimester, now that library storytime is done till January I will have some time to ponder better, more effective uses of time in our day/week/what-have-you! We are not off-track...that's one beauty of being Waldorf-inspired: it's rhythm to the day not schedule so when school ended up done in the afternoon instead of the morning we still got the important things done. But i still want things better managed so we don't get shoved out of the morning time. When am becomes pm, the pm fun/chores go out the window! I had plans for more cooking and what-not and they have not materialized. The house is also not quite together as I prefer either. Another item on my to-do list is a clear-out of unnecessaries....since Christmas is approaching, this will be a good time to do it, if only under the "making room for new bigger kid things" label. ;) It can be tricky with such a wide range between she and her brother with special needs.

Still...it's been more forward than anything else so I am so grateful for that. Today we went on a nature walk around the block (which just so happens to be a 1/2 mile so we do one trip almost every day as part of the Marathon Kids program), and she stopped me to point out a letter she found...that is to say, a letter shape made by nature. We had read Discovering Nature's Alphabet last year, and now she is noticing letters in nature herself. Her penmanship is improving daily and the only copywork she does is of her own choosing when she decides to make a book or write a letter to a friend (or idol like Keith Harkin of Celtic Thunder!) It almost makes me sad cus she is growing up so fast. One day she'll stop pronouncing it "dirl" and that'll break my heart.

*i* think i'll close here... ;)