Gym, Art, and Math

How, you ask, is playing hopscotch gym? Oh it is. And for sure the walk to the dollar store for more chalk qualified too. (Or run, in Lily's case.)

Totally Math and Art combined!!! Shapes and sidewalk art! lol.

We had such a colorful and fun day! We are not going around trying to find school in what we do all day. But it is extra fun to point it out when we can. :-)

HOW TO: Dye your hair with Kool-Aid

This photo is from Brenda's Nintendo, but I swear it is actually blue. So here is what we did. First of all, Brenda has a lot of hair, so we bought enough kool-aid packets to make a thick paste for her hair (5 I think for her, 3 or 4 for Bret's shorter and less thick hair). Squeeze enough conditioner into a bowl to cover her hair (for Brenda this was more than 1/3 of the bottle, no kidding!) and mix the kool-aid into it. Then apply thickly onto the hair. Cover the hair with a plastic bag (I used a Kroger bag and tied it at the back of her head so it was tight around her head.)

Leave the hair sit over night. The girls both tell me it was itchy on their scalp. Bret's hair was pink lemonaid. It washed out pretty quickly within a month. Brenda's blue never did wash out completely, but this is not a concern of hers and she is ready for her next color. lol.

HOW TO: Make 5 Year Old Science for an unschooler

So we decided to make our yearly terrarium today. The container is from a foam abc kit. But you can use anything. Last year we made a "We-are-not-weeds" Garden on a plate so it doesn't even have to be a terrarium to succeed. The same basic plants were in our WANW Garden from last year. This just needs to be watered more often. So the bottom is a thick layer of rocks. This is where the water drains to. Next is a thicker layer of dirt from our REAL garden.

We only have a sidewalk and patio around our house. No grass. So my dirt in my pot garden (otherwise known as a container garden) is a combination of leaf mold, compost, and some dirt from the gardening department of any store.

Then we went for a walk. We always have moss collecting on our sidewalk because our gutters leak. So that is a bonus to leaky gutters for us. :-) We lined the container with moss and picked up a few "not"-weeds from a walk around the block. Planted them and wah-lah. (This of course is voila but I saw someone type wah-lah and thought it was really funny!)

On our way around the block, we came across a vacant house with a few peaches on the driveway. I looked up and there was a PEACH TREE! I didn't know PEACH TREES GROW AROUND HERE!!! So we came up with the brillian idea to plant some of the seeds and try to have a couple peach trees in our KY property. I googled HOW TO make a peach tree from pit, got a couple different ideas, shared the peaches I collected with all three girls while sharing my planting seed ideas.

And that is how my 5 year old unschooler got her science in for the day.

Brenda's 12

Brenda's birthday present was expended in May so she could have a Nintendo DSIex for our trip to the Kalahari Unschooler's Waterpark Gathering. So this year she had 3 girls spend the night and we sang happy birthday to her with hoho's and nutter butters. However she celebrated three weeks early this year. The weekend before her birthday she and a good friend from Sandusky, OH made plans to be together over here in Cinti for the weekend. They left together to spend the week in Sandusky with her family. Then we meet up at the Unschoolers Campout Gathering where I would bring her back.

This was the photo the girls sent me from the mall. Brenda wanted to know if I would purchase this for her if she would let me put spaghetti straps onto it. Is she turning 12 or 21? It is a hard life to feel grown up and still be young.

So back to our KY roots (or at least Bret's)

"Do we work for and pay for all this convenience in order to live our lives, or do we live our lives in order to work for and pay for all this convenience..." Colin Beavin

Bret has said for years that he wants to retire at 50. Because he has plans of dying early. Well maybe not plans, but definitely expectations. So we are getting older, by the day obviously. And each day we wondered when we would get there. I homeschool the girls, I take them to their dance classes, and their swim team practices, and their Girl Scouts. We eat dinner together a few times a week like a "good family should". We try to keep a small garden in the back "yard" which if you have been to my house you know is just a patio of cement big enough for a small table, a few chairs and a pot belly grill, we recycle, we try to reuse as often as possible. Freecycle has always been my friend.

But really we want more than waking up, working, and going to sleep each day.

We finally saved enough money. We looked at many properties, but Bret kept coming back to this one. Here is the two of us looking like a Van Gogh painting in what will soon be our new yard. Our cabin will overlook the valley. Bret's goal? Have an amazing place to hunt. My goal, learn how to live with as little as possible help from the outside world.

Here is one of the food plots that the past owner provided us with. We have many deer and turkey that visit the food plots. Bret suggested that this 65 acres is better than any 100 acres he saw anywhere for his hunting purposes.

Already made watering hole for the deer, a must if you want to get them coming your way.

Our dug-out pond. (Tehehe I am calling it a lake.) It is in a valley where water drains naturally, so we expect it to be a full pond by spring's first melt.

My husband is a man of many toys. The bass boat that he was so sure would be worth tons more than the amazing deal he got it for. The tons of music equipment his band days (which was just last year still) the hunting equipment (which is the newest and most expensive so far. I used to laugh that the first deer he killed was THE MOST EXPENSIVE piece of meat we have ever eaten.) The deal stands that all those other toys must go.

We will downsize from our 7,000+ sq ft building to a 1,500 sq ft cabin that we will build. Personally I think that is too much room. I was hoping for 1,000 sq ft. After all, by the time we build and move in, Gaige will be long gone, Brenda will have one foot out the door, and Little Bret will be right behind her. This is my 5 year plan. It will take time to save up to build the house. Absolutely no credit! Off the grid? I don't know if that is possible. How to live off the land with as little help from outside as possible. Can we survive without Pizza Hut and frozen meals, garbage pick-up twice a week, shopping trips 3 times a week, $500.00 gas&electric bills, etc. Can I provide enough food for us to can for the year, will I be able to can that much food, will a garden that big be more work than I can handle, will I be able to talk Bret into an alpaca and/or sheep so I can have yarn? And if so how will I feed THEM? How to wisely use the rainwater? How to everything?? Who will want to read my facebook updates when the only thing to update is the quality of my veggie garden and the lovely time I spent watching the sun go down? Maybe I won't care about facebook by then...

First for our house (building?) Plans to have it sold in a year. We are on our way.