True Inspiration

Found this today as I contemplate our attendance at the LL Conference this year... inspiration of what I hope to achieve sooner vs. later!

True test...

Today was not the greatest... I feel achy all over from the amount of stress resulting from a day of 'rage'. It seemed that not a one of us woke on the right side of the bed, and that not one was happy to see the other. It was one of those days that I sit back and question... "am I really doing what's 'right' for this family by moving towards/into RU, or am I in some dilliusional state of mind thinking this is what we need and will thrive on for life?"

Ugh... frustration... so much so that I can not sum it up today. Too much to digest and will have to come back tomorrow, fresh... a new leaf, right? One can hope.

Last but certainly not least for this evening....

My little body artist...

Fun with friends...

Do you have those set of friends that you see but once a year due to life's complex schedules? We had a blast catching up with ours at The Grove just a week or so ago...

Lions, Jaguarundis and setting traps...

So we were having this amazingly great winter weather and taking advantage of not freezing our butts off, we headed to Reyerson's Conversation Area. Kaidin literally could have been there ALL day long. He is a true nature boy and was just loving all of the uprooted trees. We had received tons of rain last summer and it appears in the heavily wooded areas, many of the larger long-standing trees had just literally fallen over from the lack of support to their roots. Kaidin said he was a lion in the jungle and was instructing Dahlia which animal he was to be, and which direction to head, etc. It was only after sheer exhaustion (on Dahlia's part that we had to pry him away from what he said was a damn breaking. This massive uprooted try had all of this dry mud on it and he was on a mission to get the roots thoroughly clean... or to "break the damn". A real riot... Of course, not so much so when his sister was about to pass out from lack of food and sleep and she wanted to head out. Could you believe that a preservation like this one does not allow picnics? I thought it quite odd myself...
On the way out, however, they were both highly distracted by this rooster who not only crowed at them, but figured he'd just chase both of them the entier perimeter of the fence! These two would run from one end of the coop to the other end of yard and this little white rooster would chase them the whole way. Sheer entertainment for a good thirty more minutes!

After that major run, we had our little *car* picnic and headed over the forest preserves in Glenview. By that point, Dahlia had passed out in the car for her little siesta, and I had the luxury of one eye on a book and one eye on our jaguarundi in the jungle 'setting traps'. To this day, it's on our 'to-do' list to get back over to that forest and 'check our traps'!

Ok... so I stink

I am just not the best blogger in the world! I envy the women who are able to put time and energy into their blogs! I enjoy every minute of their writings, their pictures... their links... I am trying and trying. I find this a beautiful expression of what life has been for us as unschoolers... as we slowly but surely move in the 'radical' unschooling direction! I do see this in the near future. I try hard to revert... it's much like a brainwashing ritual. I find it very difficult to let go of what is so deep-seeded in me.

Anyway... aside from my 'excuses' from not writing or keeping tabs on our journey.... I have some great photos to share! I will post them shortly with a little 'adventure' re. each.