Lesson #26 First Formal Dance- A Formal Birthday Party!

A friend of Evie's, a lovely and sweet girl, had a Formal Sweet 16 party. Evie and her other homeschool buddies went together and had a great time. It really was the equivalent of a school dance, and that is exactly how it felt when I dropped her off! I really wanted to say something like...now don't be kissing boys outside, but since she would have been like, "MOM!" I didn't....heehe...I am glad she had this opportunity to enjoy this party and I know there will be more!

Her look was very classic and she looked just beautiful!

Evie looking all Hollywood

some of the kids out front of the building rented, Evie in the back to the left

Lesson#25 2012 Holiday Fun

 I have been slacking on my blog...so many things going on the end of the year that I will now have to add after the fact...oh well. That is how the holidays roll right :) This year we are grateful for the time that was spent with friends and family. Evie's dad was here visiting from California for a few weeks, we had friends over Christmas Night and as always spent actual Christmas Day at home together just cooking and enjoying each other and our gifts. It is a fabulous tradition we established years ago. We see family all around Christmas Day, such as the Eve, the day after, weeks before, ect. However, on Christmas Day itself we don't leave our home and it is a fabulous thing. No hustle and bustle just the enjoyment of our own health, good food, and each other. This year we walked in the woods a bit, and created our own giving alter in the woods, thanking the Universe, the Divine, Mother Nature, God, all names of the higher power, for our blessed family and for the blessed day. The pics are a little askew, they wouldn't aline right!

Me in my awesome new coat made of recycled sweaters, playing with Evie's Henna tattoo pen, opening her new elven quiver, and making ornaments with friends

We like to play dress up in the woods...yes we are those weird people and love it! 

Evie with her new utility belt on, our fabulous meal, and me and Mark.

Evie 14, Destiny 15...her comment was, "I am older than you again."

Lesson #24 First Archery Meet of 2012-2013 Season

Evie has been shooting archery for a local private Christian school for 3yrs. She has improved greatly and loves this sport. I love this sport for many reasons. On a practical level it is low-key practices and meets, not 3x a week for many weeks at a time like other sports. Mostly I love it because she can achieve and succeed individually as well as with her team. This was their first competition for the season and her score was 275 out of a possible 300! GO Evie!!

Cool before there was "Katniss Everdeen"-not that we don't love Katniss :)

All of Evie's are in the Yellow

I love that they score each other with a member of a competing team

Lesson #23 Volunteering Saving the Local Library and Celebrating our Library!

Recently our public library came under attack by a group of conservative Tea-Partiers. There was the possibility with enough signatures for their petition that our main library and all other five branches would close until the current debt (including a beautiful new facility in our downtown area) was paid off and a new library board was created. . The problem that this group has is that they say the library tax is "taxation without representation". The library board is made up of a group of five individuals who are not politicians in anyway and do their good service for free, lastly they are approved by the fiscal court. The taxation in question was an increase of 6.3cents per 100$ of property owed (or 63$ per 100,000$ of property) to 6.4cents or 64$ per 100,000$ worth of property. Yes I am talking about 1$. I must add that no wrong doing had taken place. No mis-use of funds, laundering, ethical issues, ect. to bring about this petition, and our library tax rate is one of the lowest in the state!

I am not going to get into the rest of the politics of this issue. The results are more important to me. The feelings felt by most of the community was shock, disbelief, and an outflow of love and support for our public library system. We have a great library. Full of free activities and help for all walks of life. Full of employees who care, quiet places to sit to read and learn, and volunteer opportunity. I really could talk about our library for quite sometime. Personally, for Evie and I, time spent there are some of Evie's first memories. If you asked my daughter where she loved to go, where she felt comfortable, where she felt safe, she would answer, "the library". That would be one of her answers when she was 5yrs old, and that would be one of her answers today. The thought that someone could take away her special place over a few dollars is appalling to say the least.

Evie has been volunteering for the children's department of the library since she was 11yrs. old. The pictures below are of her and the head children's librarian in front of the "Fat Albert Christmas Tree". The Fat Albert Tree symbolizes the need for trees and shrubs in urban areas. On this day Evie volunteered to help decorate our fabulous children's garden for Christmas. She helped in the garden and helped other kids make ornaments for the tree. We also had a Celebration Rally to celebrate the termination of the petition that could have closed the library. The pic of the kids in front of the indoor Christmas tree is a pic of some of the kids at the rally. Since we have a screen printing business we donated 100 I Love My Library t-shirts. I am not "tooting my own horn" here, I just think it is important to teach your children to give where YOU can. We love our Public Library!

Lesson #22 Lomography and other Photography

Yesterday we made our own colored filters for our camera...Lomography. We do not have an old school camera, so we have to hold our new handmade filters in front of our camera lens. It makes it harder to get interesting shots, but we got a few. This was a project we didn't get to during our Physics study of Light and Sound, but one I new we would go back to. After playing with the colors Evie continued in the woods on her own, taking some pretty fantastic photos.

Lesson #21 NaNoWriMo Winner

She did it! Her first NaNoWriMo month and she completed her goal with a couple of hours to spare!

NaNoWriMo is National November Writers Month. You set a word count goal, for Evie it was 25,000 words, and if you complete it you win! There is the satisfaction of completing your goal and aside from all the free help on the website you receive, you also win 5 free paperback copies of your book. Evie has until June 2013 to send off her manuscript for printing. Obviously she hopes to have completed her book by then.

This has been an awesome experience! In October we started working through the free 130+ page young writers workbook in preparation for the writing-athon in November. It was VERY helpful. Evie has dedicated many hours and most days of the month to writing, passing over social events as needed to work on completing her goals. This IS what we did for scholastics this month. A bit of math, a bit of art, a few days with friends, and Nano....it has been a part of our daily lives and conversation for the whole month.

Evie is proud of herself, she is happy to have "reached the freakin' line", as she put it, of completion on her progress graph, and she has learned quite a bit. I have told her from the beginning, with creativity half of the work is just "showing up", just committing to being present for creativity instead of waiting on inspiration to strike. Evie has been surprised by how many words she actually could write in a day when she did just show up to write at her desk, she has learned what time of day works best for her (after 7pm usually), and she is really excited about making daily writing more a part of her life. She wants to be the next Christopher Paolini, the homeschooler who wrote Eragon at age 15. She just turned 14 last week, so she has some time :).

Below is a few pics...notice on her wall is pinned a NaNo Graph for progress, tips, % goals, daily goals graphs, ect....I am so very proud of her for taking on this challenge, and succeeding!

Evie with her Winners Certificate

Sticking her last sticker of completion on her graph!

Lesson #20 Thanksgiving Creativity

I am always thankful for my wonderful, healthy, fabulous daughter and my equally wonderful husband. I am thankful for my life, my family unit, my great friends, and my freedom to homeschool. These are things I am forever gratefull for. I am a very blessed human being and I try to acknowledge that inwardly and aloud daily.

This year I am especially thankful for creativity. Last night (the night before Thanksgiving) as I was laying with Evie in our living room discussing the painting I had been working on I was thankful for her intellect. I was thankful for her ability to discuss the context, emotion, and complexity of art, to really engage in dialogue, to critique my piece. I was thankful for the time just to cuddle with her and as we talked about art the conversation led to Frida Kahlo and we discussed Frida as an artist and person. How her life was full of pain, joy, and art, and we looked at a few books I have on Frida that were close by on my bookshelf. We talked about how she really did LIVE in her short painful forty-seven years. As we talked, Mark was strumming his guitar, working on a new song. So his creative energy was our background to art discussion. When our conversation about Frida came to an end Evie was ready to go work on her novel that she is writing. She came back into the kitchen with writers block, but eventually went back to her own creative work.

I am thankful for the luxury that is creativity. I do not have to wait quietly in the woods to kill a deer, ensuring my family will eat. I do not have to worry about shelter or clothing for my family. Although we are not rich in monetary means, I know I do not have to worry about weather or not we will be able to pay our heating bill next week, or if we will have more food to feed ourselves and our pets. I have the luxury of being a creative spirit, and so do my husband and daughter, and I am basking in the light of all those creative juices flowing around my home.

               

Evie, my parents, and I