{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

Remember those fuzzy ducklings here?

along with SouleMama

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

joining along with Amanda over at SouleMama

Have you got a moment to share this week?

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

along with SouleMama

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

Joining along with Amanda over at SouleMama

What's your moment like?

{this moment)

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

joining SouleMama

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

joining along with SouleMama

What does your moment look like? Leave your link below.

{this week)

This week was a big stepping out for me. I went away. I got on a plane and left my children (in very good hands) for the first time ever. I've gone away by car. They've gone away by plane. But this was the first time I got on a plane and left them behind. And went across the country to California. It felt big.

It was also the first time I'd been on a plane in ten years. After twenty years of always being on planes, I took a ten year hiatus. What a difference now with airplanes and airlines, with overbooking of flights and going through long lines of security check in, even taking off the shoes and no meals served on the flight. I did enjoy the individual movie screens though and got to catch up on movie watching and movies sure do make the time fly by. (yes pun intended ~ forgive me)

I went to California for the LifeWays Board of Directors meeting. I was invited to join the board of LifeWays last year and accepted with great honor. We met in Northern California, in Marin county, nestled in the hills surrounded by tall and majestic redwoods. So Californian: vast and beautiful. What a lovely time I had with these brilliant, creative and dynamic women, who are doing so much work to create a spaciousness in life for the children and families in our midst.

We worked hard yet I left feeling refreshed and so hopeful, imagining the network of LifeWays people all across the country, all the way from Maine to Texas, up the California Coast, Canada, Colorado,  Wisconsin, New York and across the seas to Hawai'i. Yes Hawai'i. Can you imagine, "Oh honey, I'm going to do my LifeWays training in Hawai'i" Well why not? Bring the family. More here.

Some pictures from California:

LifeWays Executive Director Cynthia Aldinger with her beautiful voice sings a LifeWays tune.

I was delighted to arrive home to a sleeping house greeted by this face at the door.

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

photo by Robbie Stanley

joining with Amanda of SouleMama

{this moment}

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

inspired by SouleMama :: this morning the black eyed susies about to open

Today :: This Blog :: Musing

Hello friends, some musing here... if you're not in the mood, well click away.

I struggle so much with this blog, with bringing form and definition here. I've been thinking about it so much lately, almost getting here, wanting to get here, vowing to get here and wondering to myself, what is this blog about, who is it for? I need clarity.

Is it for me to wonder aloud and share my inner musings with you? Is it a place to follow our family life through the year? (That is a bit challenging because my children are getting older and they are not keen on being seen on the blog.) Is it a place to share glimpses of the rhythm of life as it unfolds here, where I live? Is it a place to share elements of my program Celebrate the Rhythm of Life? Is it a place to share The Wonder of Childhood?

Is it a place to answer your questions? My e-mail is full of requests for how do I help my child with this or what about that, what do you think? I strive to respond to you all, yet it is becoming overwhelming with the volume of mail I am receiving. I've thought about doing that here, anonymously, of course.

I've thought of dedicating days to certain topics like a Rhythm day or a Wonder day or a Recipe day or a Homeschooling day or an Answer the Question day, yet that feels too formed, I want more space for musing. I want more grown up talk. I am wondering...

So much possibility. So much expansive possibility at this time of year.

I feel like the five pointed star, arms and legs out, impossible to draw in and focus, so much out there, pulling me outwards. You know the look, the feeling of being stretched out...?

Sometimes I see it as a place for sharing some wisdom I have gleaned over the years and then I struggle with narrowing the focus, is it pregnancy, childbirth, midwifery, food, nutrition, parenting, teaching, early childhood, homeschooling, gardening, homemaking, where to focus, what to share? You see as we get old, we have more and more texture to our lives. Is it about growing older? ( I like that)

I've looked around the blog world and mused at the history and connection making with theme posts like Corners of My Home, I love this, to peek into others' homes or The Simple Woman's Daybook, and I love to see how other homeschoolers are doing it too. I love to see your gardens and your cooking and read your musings.

So this is my little effort at this expansive time of year to bring some cohesion to my thoughts and focus here and to my deed, writing with clarity.

At the end of all this whining, what comes to mind is to just "do it!" to show up and write and if I bore you, well perhaps you won't come back next time, and if I write often enough, perhaps you will give me another chance.

This weekend I have been enveloped in color doing lazure painting. It has been so uplifting, not tiring at all.

And right now I am working on a talk on The Senses of Childhood, what they are and why they are important and this is a lead in to my talk on Circle or Ring time play with Young Children and the Grade School Child which is a piece of our planning out the year in Celebrate the Rhythm of Life with Children Program.

I want to bring my camera outdoors and photograph all the blossoms that opened this week at the  solstice. What blossom splendor! Morning glory, borage, poppy, my grandmother's day lily, thyme, it's like the whole world just opened up to receive the warmth of the sun this week. That's another blogpost. And now it's raining ~ hard.

I'm wanting to empty the house, room by room, wash it and paint it and then chose with care just what it is I want to live with. This is the longest I have spent in one house in my adult years. We have been here for ten years and I love the intimacy that comes with living in a place year after year, noticing where the sun moves through the year, noticing what grows where, where does the catnip pop off the sprout again next year? where the nettles rise, seemingly carried by the wind.

Over the years I've come to see  that this is the week to scrub down the north facing walls and corners of the house because the sun reaches those places and can really dry them out after a good scrubbing.

Okay, I've let it all out, fitting for Moon day, day of reflection.

I' love to hear from you, why do you blog? How do you bring focus? How do you stay on track with it? What inspires you? Love to hear from you below.

Happy Moon Day!

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. a photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

inspired by Soulemama

Seventeen :: June 12

Seventeen Times Around the Sun