Catching up!

The past month has been a busier than normal month for us, thus the reason I have not been posting!
Keeping Evan on track with his lesson's has been a major issue for us all here, but we all started thinking that this is WAY to much like school...that we homeschool/unschool for a reason, and this is one of them! Stress! Making sure that he has ALL assignments done by a certain deadline. This is stressful. He also does not like that fact that he has do to work that is something he completed 3 years ago! Math they make him show them his work, that has never worked for Evan, he does not use paper to figure out problems...more stress. So we have pulled him from the online k-12.
We had a snowstorm here, last 3 days, and in the Pacific Northwest that is a long one! In one day we had 9 inches fall!





It was a lot of fun for us all! We also made snow ice cream, built a snowman, and snow angels. A blast!
I have a new sewing machine coming in a few days, and I hope within the week we will have a mini-van or car.
We signed another years least on this house, so that is good! Just can not believe it has been almost a year since we left New Orleans! I miss it, but I know that this was right for us at this moment in time.

Homeschooling-unschooling

The summer is upon us, and we had to sit down and think about what we wanted to do for the summer.
Do we just keep going, or do we have a vacation? We have decided to do both!
Since we moved in March, our homeschooling/unschooling was not very active. We still have a lot of catch up to do, and well we have been rather slow about it.
With having a daughter severely dyslexic, and another one that feels she should not have to do more work than her older sister, it has been a challenge for us. Evan is on his own thing, he really is closer to a traditional unschooler, as he goes with what he want to learn at that moment. Of course I have to throw in things, but still he is doing really good, and is bring up historical people, that I have never even heard of!
I am worried about the girls, they are not up to the reading levels that they should be, and this is really scary. I want so much for them, and I am afraid that they may not be getting all that they deserve at home!
I know that they want to remain at home, that has become very clear, when I had to promise them that I would not send them to that "horrible" place!
Lamar County (TX) School's really damage my kids! I am still amazed at how fast a school district can ruin education for a child, for our it was less than 1 year! I know it is not fair to blame the who school distric, but the kids ended up with some really horrible teachers, and only a couple of really good ones.
I know that we will get a handle on this, but it still scares me that they will not have the love of books that Aidan and I do. Evan does, but the girls not so much. I am hoping that this will change soon!

Going home...again

We are starting our school year...exciting time for us. We are still largely still unschooling, but will hopefully be part of a co-op. I have offered to do a lot of the art projects.
I am worried as we have decided to move back to Washington State, writing that makes it more real now. I am scared, the move from Washington to Texas was very hard, but it was a move that we should not have done. We only moved to NOLA as a way to escape Paris Texas...trust me that is what we did ran like hell from there!
The thing is that I do like NOLA, it is a very wonderful city, with amazing people, culture, music, food, etc. BUT it is not home to me, I have tried to make it home, but it just never worked that way. I have met some amazing people, that I hope to keep in my life for a long time, but it still is not home. I always feel in limbo here, and like any minute things will be gone. I know that chances of another Katrina happening in my lifetime would be rare, it is still there. Also NO one can predict the weather, and things in the climate are changing all the time...the artic shelve is melting, the wetland's are disapearing...I mean can ANYONE promise me that it will be okay? No, and they should not. I also know that things can happen anywhere, but for me TO much can happen here.
It is also that I want to go home, NOW!
I know the moving around is not good for the kids, so I hoping that this will be the last move for awhile. I am hoping to make a better life for us there. It is time.
There is a way of life that I hope to get back to...I also do not like living where we live...the area makes places like "Hilltop" in Tacoma look like Beverly Hills! That is scary! So once again we move, and this time I will be living in Washington
untill I leave feet first.

Photo of MT. Rainer by Greg Hewgill 1998

Creating, mothering

I am here starting this new blog, listening to two of my children fight over the everything and anything. SO it is interesting that I am here starting a blog about being a mother, and also being an artist, and they are fighting! I just find that perfect.

I should introduce myself, I am Melinda, I am married, to Aidan, and we have 3 children together, he also have 2 other children from previous relationships. Our children are Evan is 14 years old, Chloe who will be 10 years old in 3 weeks, and Isibella, who is 7 years old. His son Aidan "Ned" came to live with in June. We also have my sister Phyllis who lives with us, so we live in a very full house. We live in New Orleans, LA, yes we moved here after the storm! We love the city, and have adopted it as our own.

We unschool all of our children, if you do not know what that is, please go to this website to help you understand.
We are into natural parenting, we do not follow mainstream for child-rearing. We believe in attachment parenting, and in treating our children as humans, not as a object we own.

I am a stay at home mom, yet I also make things to sell. I am currently selling photo's, jewelry, ceramic's. Aidan is a teacher and writer. He is currently working on a new book.

I am into nature religion, I believe that everything is connected, and that there is female and male energy is the universe.

I am currently involved in making altered art, and the kids are having blast doing this as well.