Don't Forget...

that we're meeting at my house tomorrow evening at 7pm to talk about the ideas in The Continuum Concept.

Last Skating?

I'm feeling a bit disappointed that I haven't taken my kids skating much this winter. And we missed out today, too, as I forgot until too late... Did any of you go?
It looks like the last homeschooling time at the outdoor rink is on Monday, 10:30 until 11:30. Would anyone like to meet us there? I'm determined to make it, unless it's pouring rain or the ice has all melted (ha!) It's always more fun when people we know are there too... Anyone?

The Continuum Concept Conversation

Oooh! I'm excited! Let's schedule it for Tuesday, Feb 27 at 7pm at my house. Thanks everyone!
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Edit: Too much going on this week so I'd like to extend this invitation to NEXT week (Feb 26, 27 or 28). Would that work? What evening? Monday? Tuesday? or Wednesday?
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Would anyone like to come to my house next Wednesday (Feb 21 at 7pm) for a conversation about this book? I'll have tea and chocolate.
Anyone? Anyone?

Movie Time

I'm going to see Shut Up and Sing (click on the title for more info) on Monday night at 7:30pm at the Towne Theatre. Anyone want to join me? I often go to the film society movies (they show every other Monday night) and they're often sold-out with long line-ups to get in down the street. When I remember, I buy my ticket in advance. If anyone can plan that far ahead I could pick up your ticket when I get mine. This looks like a really good one.

Another Option for ordering bulk flour

Karen's friend, Anita orders regularly from an organic mill in Chilliwack. We could also go in with her on an order. I'm thinking their flour might be more natural and definitely fresher, as they grind the wheat right there, fresh. Here's the link to the mill. They don't have the prices listed but according to Karen's price list (which is old) stone ground organic spelt is $43.80 for 20 kilos and whole wheat stone ground flour is $19.75 for 20 kilos.
Anita will be placing an order in the next couple of weeks. What do you think? I'm leaning towards this option.

Ice Fishing

We went to visit my Grandma yesterday and when driving by Wood Lake noticed SO many people out there ice-fishing! There were lots of seagulls around and even a small heron, standing out there on the ice, so I assume there must have been some fish coming up. Annika and Pedar are SO keen to give it a try, so we're heading out there today. We have NO idea what we're doing, but hoping to use a hole that's already been made and give it a go.
I would have thought the lake wouldn't be frozen thick enough by now, but apparently it is! Just wanted to let you know in case anyone else has been keen to go ice-fishing...

UPDATE: We went out, the lake is BARELY safe with only 4 inches of ice. I was too nervous to keep my kids out there for any length of time so we had a quick look, chatted to the men who were out there fishing (they were catching kokanee YUM! and 2 blue herons were waiting patiently for the heads!) and came home. The lake is thawed all around the edges so we had to jump across water to get onto the ice! Yikes!

Food

So Mary Sue and I in our search for organic spelt flour at an affordable price have come to the conclusion that we must order it ourselves from the source. Big Buy which has been so gracious as to order it from Dan-d-pak is not ordering from them right now and might not be ordering from them again. Everywhere else Mary Sue looked was very expensive - especially if one is trying to do all their own baking.

So what we have decided to do is to put an order into Dan-d-pak ourselves. I have called and ordered the catalogue. You remember my stories about the 50lbs of sea salt and how much 5 lbs of oregano really is? Yes, that was ordered from Dan-d-pak (no idea if I am spelling that right...). From there we can order a 50 lb bag of organic whole grain spelt flour for $50. Now if we have an order for $1000 then the shipping is free. From these people you can also order many organic things and non-organic. In fact, I believe that Rancho Vignola gets some of their stuff from them (making an assumption from the box that my stuff came in). I've bought organic nuts from Dan-d-pak before and they were great. They have all kinds of baking stuff. I am thinking right now that I would like to get an order together every 3 months and buy 3 months worth of flour at a time. If we got a few people together, we could easily make the $1000 limit. If you are interested, let me know and I will arrange a get-together when the catalogue comes in. Feel free to share this with others, too. There will be no profit made on this.

You can check them out here. But they have much more than you can see on the website and they have things in large quantities - not just those little packages.

spring cleaning

For those of you who were not at our meeting last week - I suggested we get together and spring clean each other's homes. What I'd like to see is us getting together (with our kids who can help if they'd like) once a week until spring. We'd clean one house each week until we were done. I'm thinking of doing things like windows, walls, cupboards, dusting, and de-cluttering. Or - we could focus on one big job (like a really disorganized storage room).I guess we could do just about anything that would make you feel ready for spring. If you are interested please let me know asap so I can start organizing this. When you respond please let me know which days work best for you and which jobs you would like to have done.

Snow Fun

I took my kids out to the Candlemass celebration and it was very magical. One of their activities was painting in the snow. The kids had made a giant castle for the gnomes and some snow people and then all the children were given big paintbrushes and some yogurt containers full of very diluted watercolour paints and they LOVEd painting the scene. My kids have been doing it non-stop ever since. I'm sure tempura paints would work as well, and it really isn't just for little-kids, as I can just imagine the magnificent artwork Maggie could create on her front lawn! We're finding that the slushy snow is perfect for this activity (and not much else?) as you can quickly scoop up a slushy castle with the wet snow... SO fun! Maybe this is an old idea for all of you, but just wanted to share in case you're looking for something fun outside to do...

Resources from our Feb. 7 meeting

Hi, so I said I would give you the info on the free on-line audio stories: http://www.homeschoolradioshows.com/
You sign up and get one free story a week - it's the old radio shows and some are pretty cool. I just play them on the computer and the boys sit in my office and listen to them.

The other resource I wanted to mention is a book called Keeping A Nature Journal. It's available at Amazon.ca and I've heard really great things about it - for introducing people of all ages to observing and recording nature. I have ordered it so can bring it to the next meeting.

And - here are some books for kids that are about philosophy/our place in the cosmos - that sort of thing. I haven't read them yet but many are in our library:
Old Turtle (there are a couple, the first is not in the library YET - I'm requesting they buy it, but they have one of the other...Old Turtle and the Broken Promise I think
All I See is Part of Me - Chara Curtis
The Three Questions - Jon Muth
Zen Shorts - Jon Muth
The Jupiter Stone

it was great to see you all - great conversation!! AND - I do think the work-bee idea for house cleaning is great - especially for those of you who are going to be moving - we ought to come and help you clean either your old house or your new house or both!

crafting next week

For those of you interested in getting together to do collage...how does Monday morning work for you? I'm thinking that some of us have babies that need to sleep in the afternoon so maybe 9:30 or 10 until noonish?

Parents Support Meeting this Wed, Feb 7

Just a reminder that this Wednesday at Bean to Cup at 7pm is our support meeting. I am really feeling the need to connect in this way - especially after missing last month's. I put the notice in the paper, too. I look forward to seeing you all and drinking some lavender tea!

Candelmas Festival

The Cedar Bridge Waldorf School is hosting a canlelmas festival this Wednesday from 3-5:15 at their school in Lavington. Their poster says:

Our celebration is a festival of food, colour and warmth. Dress warmly and wear a
costume as we will make instruments to play as we parade our school grounds with
the Candlemas King and Queen. We'll light candles to warm the earth to help the
gnomes as they light the seeds beneath the snow mantle above. A special puppet show,
"The Star Child" will be presented as well. Please RSVP at 547-9351. We look forward to
seeing you!

I'm going to take my kids out there to check it out. Jen says that they are considering giving homeschoolers the option of doing school one day a week. Hope to see some of you there!

I needed that...

My crabby day turned wonderful when I saw all of you this morning. I've missed you all so much- we need to do this way more often. Thank-you Mary-Sue for putting it on and taking the initiative to lead us in a meaningful seasonal celebration. We were inspired to have our own fire tonight with daddy and burn a few more little slips of paper. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. See you soon for some crafting I hope.

Celebration Tomorrow

Brrrrrrrr! If tomorrow is anything like today, we'll be celebrating INdoors! We have a hearth fire, which is a big part of the Imbolc celebration, so we'll gather around it. It'll be more crowded, but we'll manage nicely, I'm sure. So 9 o'clock it is.
Just a couple of things: There is one part of the fire ritual where we encourage our children (and us) to release any psychic "dust" we may be holding onto from the past year. We draw a picture or write something we regret, a word we wished we hadn't said, or something we wish we'd done differently. This is all done in private, unless someone feels they want to share what they're releasing. Then we crumple the paper and THROW it into the fire symbolically releasing it from our minds and hearts. So, we all can keep this ceremony in mind in case we need a little time to think of something. Then the other part is writing down something we want to manifest in this coming year, so we can be thinking of that too.
See you tomorrow! Use the comments to ask any questions or share ideas...