Zen-Mother

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My two favorite ways to save are to buy in bulk for a discount and to order from co-ops. This week I really stocked up on my bulk purchases at Costco and through a Frontier co-op. I have lots of storage space and two refrigerators and two freezers so this works well for me. At Costco some of my best finds were:

FruitaBu Organic Smooshed Fruit Rolls - I got these for .10 cents a piece and they sell retail for .62 cents. I bought about 10 cases.

Rice - Pennies per serving.

12 Packs of organic chocolate milk - Saved $3.00 per case.

Turkey Sausages with no hromones or antibiotics - Saved $1.00 for every six pack.

Through Frontier I order a new gourd for Yerba Mate and a new bombilla and alot of organic carob mint yerba mate. I got some candy apple tea for the kids, kids vitamins, natural deodorant, organic bar soaps, and some Burts Bees. All of it was 50% off retail price. There is just no reason to use the conventional and more toxic products when you can get these prices!

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My baby is a year and half now. Please someone tell me how to slow time down!

And with Paige….

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A little over a year ago I bought my kids an inflatable bounce house to use outdoors. Well, that was a major pain in the butt. It kept getting muddy when it rained and covered in grass whenver we mowed. It also killed the grass underneath it. Since we moved it has been in a box…until today. We put it up in the basement…providing a cool indoor retreat for the kiddos to play.

Also I wanted to show you my latest garage sale finds for the kids!

A wooden sled that is like new with a leather pad ($10.00):

And a big wheel bike ($5.00):

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Carrie tagged me! So here are 8 random things about me. Let see if I can come up with some different answers I have already done this meme once before on my NatureMoms blog.

1. My earliest memories are of being in the front seat of race cars. Both my mom and dad were professional drag racers when they met and married.

2. I got married in Las Vegas. I also honeymooned there…at the Bellagio.

3. All through my tween years I wanted to marry Axl Rose from Guns N Roses.

4. My first concert was Bon Jovi when I was 16. I went with my mom.

5. I am a BIG time movie buff. New movies come out on Tuesdays and it is rare that I don’t buy at least one. I have over over 1500 DVDs. Right now I am going through an English classic phase…Sense and Sensibility, Emma, The Painted Veil, and every version of Pride and Prejudice I can get my hands on.

6. I am not so big on TV but I do like Traveler, Smallville, and Clean House. I like to watch Clean House marathons while I clean my own house on Saturdays. I also really like Big Love about a polygamist family. I have TiVo though so I watch on my own schedule…usually late at night.

7. I LOVE to read. I just finished reading the Dark Materials series. I read all three books in three days. Next up will probably be Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. This fiction run is pretty rare though. I like non-fiction books.

8. I turn 30 this Saturday!
That’s all folks!

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The first edition of The Natural Family Living Blog Carnival has lots of posts near to my heart. ALL the posts were great but I especially liked Carrie’s post on Eating Organic on a budget, Kevin’s post on eating local, the Cake Stand post from Mel, and 100 Ways to Cut Wedding Costs which actually sounded like a blueprint for a frugal and green wedding.

This was a great edition for those interested in frugality AND natural living.

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There was a hilarious segement in Vanity Fair this month. It is a two page spread called “Dante’s Inferno: Green Edition”. On the graphic on the second page it shows and inverted pyramid with Al Gore walking around on the top in a white robe. He is in “paradise” more or less with his Prius. Underneath him are the indifferent people. Many other political and media figures are depicted within the other circles but of course the funniest is that last circle…Hell.

Who exactly is in hell? Satan….along with his three mouths: Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Oh how I laughed at the depictions of them.
Anyway I also wrote about an expose on Myron Ebell and CEI that appeared in that same issue. It blows the whistle on global warming skeptics. Read all about it.

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Well, chock up another one for the unschoolers. I swear I feel as though I am learning some of the universe’s deepest and most evasive secrets from them. Why is it that I read some of the things they write and I am dumbfounded by the profound truth in them and wonder why it was I could not see this?

Here is an example.

The poster Melissa writes about how her daughter so dutifully helped in the garden of her own volition and how this is just one area in which unschooling has benefited their lives. She also talks about how unschooling is a concept that seems to be feared by mainstream society as a sure  fire way I would think, to let your kids run wild. Trusting in your kids is just not an accepted practice.

The post is beautiful and entertaining but I admit I have to say my first inclination would be to say that kids will take advantage of limited rules in the household as did one commenter name Blue. I found myself internally agreeing with everything she said and found her statements to be sound proof that unschooling won’t work for many families.

Then I went on to read Melissa’s response and I was slapped back into reality. Unschooling is a process and not something to be done cold turkey or your worst fears might in fact be realized. There may even be a short time when your kids to take advanatge of the relaxed rules but that is where confidence in your children to turn things around and settle into a pattern of learned responsibility is needed.

I especially liked how she showed that kids who were given the right to make their own choices were perhaps less likely to grow up and feel pressured to choose what other kids percieve as “adult” things like drinking and sex. It really makes sense that if they were treated like an individual capable of making decisions for themselves and caring for themselves they will make smarter decisions than their peers because they have had significantly more practice. They won’t need to choose sex and drugs to feel “grown-up”.

But the real gem of advice in this post is her advice to Blue that she should start gradually by “erasing those limits in our minds, and being open to saying…Yes”. I can get behind that. Why not see if it works in your family by making the conscious decision to say yes more? I think I will.

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What IS unschooling? Basically, as I understand it….unschooling is allowing children to learn from life and not from a structured school setting. According to Wikipedia, Unschooling (also sometimes referred to as “natural learning”, “child-led learning”, “discovery learning”, or “child-directed learning”) is the term given to an increasingly popular method of homeschooling. Under unschooling education, parents act as “facilitators” and are responsible for having a wide-range of resources available to provide their children with a quality education.

I have become increasingly more interested in this theory of schooling because it seems to be the way I also like to learn…even as an adult. I also tend to “facilitate” learning as a parent and not be a “teacher” so much. I would much rather take my children to COSI once a week to learn about the science that interests them rather than sit down with them and do some sort of structured science lesson. That being said I am not even homeschooling at this point…let alone unschooling but my thoughts keep getting pulled in that direction more and more and since I do not believe education ends after your child officially gets out of school for the day…unschooling is sounding more attractive.

The other day I began to question unschooling when I met a couple of moms who subscribe to “radical” unschooling. Basically the thought that kids can direct their own schooling is taken even further into other aspects of their lives. These kids had nearly no boundaries….they could play video games 24/7, hit their siblings and parents, neglect personal hygiene, use foul language, etc. all because their mothers felt that it was their right to experiment with these choices. They also felt that allowing these things created a sense of peace in the family because everyone makes their own choices and no one tries to exert control over any other family member. Of course as they are describing this I am not seeing the picture of a very peaceful household…as a little girl strikes her mother in the face and the mother tells her that she had every right to hit as that is what she felt she needed to do.

Well, I am glad I did not let that sway me from unschooling. I think it is just safe to say I will never enter the realm of “radical” unschooling…or will I? Today I heard from another radical unschooler or RAD as she calls herself and she described how she handles bed time….or perhaps I should say how she doesn’t handle it. She trusts her children to follow their own instincts about when they are sleepy and ready for bed. This often means her kids are up as late as she is. I guess many would consider this pretty radical but I finally found a common point I could relate to. I do not have bed times for my kids either…much to my own mother’s dismay. She absolutely hates the fact that I let my kids play and watch videos until late at night. But I have never seen a reason to enforce a bed time because I am always up late too and I did not want to create discontent in the house over an issue that I feel is not very important. I did not let my children “cry it out” when they were babies and I do not let them cry it out now either. I put on a video for them to watch usually, turn the lights out to make the environment conducive to sleep, and I let them fall asleep on their own or they can stay up until I go to bed too and we can all get in bed together. When I tried to enforce a bed time after being guilted by my own mother my household became one of strife and I just don’t see the point…at least as far as the sleep issue is concerned.

So while I am not uncschooling…yet…I have found the experience of learning from these other moms to be wonderful. And if I can see their point on this issue then I wonder what else I might change my mind about in the future. It is wonderful that so many moms follow their natural instincts and allow their children to explore their own instincts as well. Learning from life is not a bad way to learn.

This post is part of Scribbit’s monthly writing contest.

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I had a rather nasty surprise this morning when I was cleaning out my pantry. A huge bottle of organic maple syrup from Costco had spilled..some time ago. So I had a huge circle, maybe a foot around, of crystallized maple syrup. The stuff was hard as cement.

I pulled out a bucket of hot water and a scrubby sponge and started scrubbing. Well the finish on the sponge was coming off before that maple syrup.
It took me about an hour of serious scrubbing to get it clean but at least my arms got a good workout!

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With the holidays behind you, no doubt your kids have received more toys for Christmas. Unfortunately, they are everywhere you turn.  Keeping the toys from overtaking the house is a simple process.  Let’s review some tips to help you bring your house back to order.

There are wonderful Tupperware chests you can purchase to store all of the toys skewed about the house.  In addition, most of them come on wheels, which make the picking up of toys easier.  They also come in colors and sizes, which can compliment any child’s room. Also available are hanging chests which would really make life easier for you. They can be hung on the wall of your child’s room, which is ideal especially if the bedroom is small.

Once you have all of the toys neatly assembled; the task before you is to get rid of the old or unwanted toys in your kids’ bedroom.  This is something you will have to either confer with your kids, or determine on your own which toys should go and which should be kept.  Just gather them up and place them in large boxes.  If they are broken, and you can fix them, give them to a charitable organization. If they are intact; add them to the charity box as well.

When kids receive new toys, they quickly forget the old; well, usually they do.  Again, the process doesn’t have to be traumatizing. Just discuss it with your kids, make a decision, and explain to them the importance of donating their old toys to charities.  Make sure you explain to them the more room they have, the more toys they may receive next Christmas.

Check online to view all of the different toy chests available.  Take your kids with you to buy these chests.  In this way they can participate and choose whatever color or style they like.  You can be assured once you arrive home; they will be bursting at the seams in anticipation of putting their toys in their new chests.

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