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"In every job to be done, there is an element of fun. Find the fun, and - snap - the job's a game!"
Mary Poppins
The Denim Jumper Secular Homeschooling Website
Contact Poppins
I am Sarah, a Canadian, feminist, secular, imperfect homeschooler who strives to engage life and ask questions. I homeschool because I believe that humans should not be mass manufactured. I have 2 kids: Sandra is 10, Matthias is 8. Expect a lot about teaching a wiggly boy and a struggling reader.More about us.
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| Saturday, January the 12th of 2008 |
A birth announcement
It's been quite a nine months.
I know that I started new things last January, such as exploring photography with my new camera, listening to the Creative Mom Podcast, and getting ready for Project Spectrum. So I thought that it was, perhaps, my one year 'art-iversary'. Digging around, though, led me to the startling news that I had first uploaded something artistic in March. At first I was disappointed. What a blog entry my 'art-iversary' could have been! Would I remember to post about it when it was time?
But nine months...that I've done all this in nine months...astonishing. Nine months...the time it takes to grow a new human life...can it be a complete coincidence that I notice it now?
It just so happens that I'm working on a new online home, a new online face. I would like to announce the birth of Handmade Homeschool. You'll find me there from now on. It's a far better living room in which to share a cup of tea with you. There are some great features that I'm really excited about. I'll be able to make pdf files and let you print off some planners and such, for instance, and I'll be able to change my custom header as the mood strikes.
I've downloaded my Poppins archives and I have a copy. However, I'm still working on bringing them over to the new home, and I can't promise they'll be there. There are formatting issues. They'll be here at least until fall, when my prepayment here runs out.
Can't wait to see you over there. I'll put the kettle on.
Posted by Poppins at 2:23 pm ~ There are 3 spoonfuls of sugar [ View ~ Add ] |
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| Friday, January the 11th of 2008 |
Word of the Year
Word of the year...word for the year?
Prepositions can make such a difference in a sentence. Happily, my word for the year is also the word of the year. When I read about the idea, I didn't think I would apply it to my life just now. But a few days' thought and I realized I had a word for the year, or it had me, to be more accurate.
Are you choosing a word of the year? Ali Edwards had a great idea.
It's a little like choosing the theme music for your year, it sets the
tone, pulls at the heart, leads the way deeper into the psyche.
Adventure. A word that hints of sweat and endless vistas, a word that conjures spice and the cries of exotic birds filling the air.
1 a: an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b: the encountering of risks <the spirit of adventure>
2: an exciting or remarkable experience <an adventure in exotic dining>
3: an enterprise involving financial risk
I'm not talking only of our travels, although they will be a dominant feature in shaping this year. I'm also talking about living everyday life as an adventure. Life is not an adventure, it is the adventure. But how many of us approach life as though it were a boating safety course? Shedding that approach, casting off, has meant that I find adventure everywhere when I'm paying attention. An exciting or remarkable experience can be had anywhere, even when the calls of exotic birds are not filling the air.
"You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait. You need not even wait, just learn to become quiet and still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
Franz Kafka
A passage that caught my eye in the Tao Te Ching when I first read it came to mind again today:
Without taking a step outdoors
You know the whole world;
Without taking a peep out the window
You know the colour of the sky.
The more you experience,
The less you know.
The sage wanders without knowing,
Looks without seeing,
Accomplishes without acting.
(chapter 47 as translated by Peter Merel)
Adventures of the mind. Adventures of the pen. Adventures of the body. Adventures together. Adventures alone.
I'd love to read your word, if you're choosing one. Or if it's choosing you, as mine did.
Posted by Poppins at 1:20 pm ~ There is zero note [ Add a spoonful of sugar ] |
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| Wednesday, January the 09th of 2008 |
looking to the horizon
larger on Flickr
Thinking ahead.
Definitely something at which I excel, but over-thinking ahead isPreparedness’ ugly cousin. And I worry that I’m over-thinking our tripto Europe. The thing is, I know how to pack for 5 weeks, but this isdifferent. This is three and a half months, most of it in our ownrented apartments. This isn’t a vacation, it’s a life.
Questions that I ask myself over and over again:
- Is is too early to start a packing list on paper?
- What kind of art supplies should we take along? Our family artoutput continues to soar, and while I know that we can buy paper andpaint and journals over there, I know where the discounts are here.
- What read alouds do we take? I want good and enjoyable chapter books set in Holland, Germany, Austria and Hungary.
- What books do I take for me? I tend to read more for comfort there, since all else is adventure (even grocery shopping).
- What homeschooling gear do we take? Math? Reading? Reading’s easierfor Sandra since she now reads chapter books, but Tias is still in thequick-n’-easy book consumption phase. Is the big Usborne World Historybook overkill?
I’m getting excited, though, and have given myself a series of tasksto prepare for doing art over there. I painted that landscape up there,for instance, from a picture I took out the hall window of Neuschwanstein,as a test to see if I’m a total failure at landscapes. In my daydreamsI’m really looking forward to painting landscapes over there, so Iwanted to know if I was any good. The camera and the scanner bothfailed to capture the colours and nuance of it, but I’m really, reallypleased. Astonished, actually.
Another task I’ve got in the works: practicing sketching cityskylines. I love doing them, I love the look of them. I can already seein my mind’s eye the classic ink portraits of architecture that willgrace the pages of my journal. But I want to do them more quickly thanI can now. So I plan to use photos from my guidebooks and do threesketches: the first in 10 minutes, the second in 5, and the third in 2.A little speed training.
I won’t even get started on the quest for the right sketchbook, though.
Posted by Poppins at 5:17 pm ~ There are 8 spoonfuls of sugar [ View ~ Add ] |
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| Tuesday, January the 08th of 2008 |
Red Skirt
My first skirt! Woot!
I used Sew What! Skirts to draft my own pattern and create this skirt. It's an A-line with a drawstring, trimmed with rickrack on the bottom. It's still a bit wider than I'd like, even though I narrowed it twice, so I'm more than pleased that the point of this book is to learn what works for you and your body.
It was really easy and only took a few hours. As planned, it was the
perfect project to teach me a whole bunch of sewing things (like seaming and buttonholes), and I have
further plans... They include teaching Sandra how to make her own version of this, making a polka-dotted mini-skirt (so kicky), and a dazzling half-circle skirt in a spicy earth-toned cotton. After that, my plans become a little vague, but the possibility of shirts has come to mind.
Love the ginko leaf motif!
Rainer picked out this fabric when we went on our fabric binge. We got enough for at least 7 skirts, two of which are for Sandra. I casually mentioned to her that this could be the start of her career as 'that cool homeschool kid who makes all of her own clothes and she's so funky and isn't it cool that no one on the planet has the same clothes as her because she makes them all'. Just casually mentioned it.
Laying down seeds, because you never know which one will find fertile ground.
Posted by Poppins at 12:11 pm ~ There are 5 spoonfuls of sugar [ View ~ Add ] |
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| Monday, January the 07th of 2008 |
Pockets
There's something I've forgotten in the past few weeks while I've had stretches of time at my disposal, and that's the power of pockets of time. Time between. As I get ready to enter the whirl of activities and plans in
this new year, I am remembering the power of using those pockets
rather than frittering them away.
Posted by Poppins at 7:39 am ~ There is zero note [ Add a spoonful of sugar ] |
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| Saturday, January the 05th of 2008 |
+2 Celsius
  larger on Flickr larger on Flickr
Yesterday it was so warm that we could all have a blast. Normally I'd be all over any activity that involves exercise and fun and producing heat on a winter's day, but I have a bit of scar tissue in my neck that makes the joustling of tobogganing hard on me. It was so warm, though, that I could wear a fingerless mitt on my right hand and draw the sweep of the riverbank. Marvelous.
I had to exercise the power of my mind, though. There were other parents there, and I was certainly the only one drawing. Without a doubt I was setting a precedent. So I resolutely ignored them all. And when I had the idea to photograph the sketchbook and the scenery together - a thought which proves I'm now a blogger through and through, I think - well, let's just say that I used the power of my mind to pretend I was completely alone on the planet.
Posted by Poppins at 3:59 pm ~ There is zero note [ Add a spoonful of sugar ] |
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| Friday, January the 04th of 2008 |
Handmade Gifts, part III
This last post rounds up some paper creations. Sandra did a 4x6" watercolour painting for each of us. She put a lot of thought into each and matched the subject to the person. Several of these pieces made me gasp. That she can consistenly pull ideas like this from her mind is wonderful. She did a use a bit of a guide for the moose and the Calvin and Hobbes picture, but mostly just let things spring up from the fertile corners of her mind.
Rainer got something a little out of the ordinary this year. Not knitting. Not art.
It's a triathlon training journal. He really didn't expect it. Neither did I. I was struggling to think of something I could make for him this year and was extremely happy when this project occured to me. A little wrestling with a copy machine and then a coil binding...
This Christmas was great. Better than great. Next year I want to do a completely handmade Christmas. It'll be a little interesting with the time we'll be in Europe and away from our craft supplies, but I think we should be able to manage all the gifts and stocking stuffers with a little planning and creative brainstorming. It'll be the last Christmas before my 1001 days run out, and doing a handmade Christmas is on there.
I've just updated the list, for those who are interested in such things. Annoyingly, this software isn't letting post a link. It's right there to the left in my sidebar, though. Sorry. Among other things, I've managed to get my basic running speed up to a 10 min mile on the treadmill, which is so much faster than I ever thought reasonable when I first started this.
Posted by Poppins at 11:18 am ~ There is zero note [ Add a spoonful of sugar ] |
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