So, I took a little break until I had the time and motivation to put my blog together with a little more TLC and promptly lost all interest in blogging.
I’m back. Here is what’s been up over the last several months:
We stayed vegan.
We learned that we have a passion for cooking.
After several tests it was concluded that my daughter is severely dyslexic and she attended a small private school for kids with special needs in Mayfield. It was a great experience, but sadly not in our price range. Maybe it wasn’t in anyone‘s because it shut down due to lack of funding. Shedd Academy will be missed. I will especially miss being the Art Teacher at Shedd and the conversations with Ms. Ila and Mrs. D. It was the only school I’ve ever heard of where the students would skip breaks because they were so interested in their classes. The teachers were completely engaged. The classes were small and the kids very respectful and loving with one another. Of course at Shedd, there were many breaks and teachers expected the kids only to work at their own pace. That meant it was fine to be way ahead or behind the kid sitting next to you. That kid might be 10 or 17. That did not matter and I think the kids felt a special happiness being so accepted and so much a part of an extended family at Shedd. Meeting other dyslexic kids and having teachers who understand her has made my daughter bullet proof when it comes to comments about her difficulty reading.
So we returned to unschooling only now more confident than before. We took home some materials from Shedd and ordered some auditory software etc. online and got back to our groove. Only our funky groove had evolved and changed and we felt more dedicated to our goals. We became more radical in our unschooling and more excited about it.
Some old friends moved out of our lives and new friends moved in. I decided that our family needed attention and I stopped being active with local charities. I started focusing on myself more. I spent a lot of time in meditation over the winter months.
Something that could have derailed us but did not was that just before Christmas, my husband was told that his place of business was shutting down. There was nothing he could do to save his job and what was more upsetting was that he had very little time to find new and appropriate homes for all of his residents. By the time the doors closed and hard goodbyes were said, he had found them all homes. He wondered often about his employees and how they would find new jobs with the county losing so many businesses. He needed a sabbatical in the worst way.
At first he tried to find new employment but, there wasn’t much in his field. There was a lot of work for nurses. He remembered how much he had loved working in the hospital as a surgery transporter once upon a time and he decided to finish nursing school. He’s also getting his administrators license. In this economy you need a diversified and yet specialized skill set. His BA and QMRP just don’t cut it at present. He has become more active than ever in our unschooling journey. We have chosen to see this as a blessing and consider his presence in our home life a priceless asset. He has jump started our interests in so many ways. I forget how well he an I balance each other out.
We’ve never been so close. We’re like teenagers in love again. We have no distractions, no hurry, few worries so what we really think and feel about one another has surfaced like a long buried treasure that we did not know we‘d lost. Turns out, we’re more than a little fond of each other. I had forgotten and I think he had too just how much fun he is to be around and just how well we can work as a team. I had not noticed how tired he was or how distracted by work. I recently found a description I had written as a teenager. I had described my perfect date. The description still fits him. I’m amazed that I knew what I wanted even then. Our marriage has not always been so amiable. We were golden gloves squabblers at one time. That seems like 5 life times ago. I’m so glad we have most of this spring and summer to be together and just be a family. He only has one or two classes this summer. I’ve honestly never been so happy.
That would probably piss some people off. We’re jobless and happy. Too bad. I could scramble around and worry. I could moan and wail and look for all the reasons not to be happy today as my life is, or I could accept it and love it and learn from it. I’m going with the second choice. Besides, my husband has been on 24/7 call for most of our marriage. He never had time to the treat burn out that one gets from years of work with the special needs community. (Who does?) We took one family vacation in 10 years. We’ve earned this time together and we’re using it the best way we can.
He also has time to work on remodeling our upstairs. Yea! That is going to take some time, but it will turn unused space into an extra bedroom and bathroom. Eventually, we hope to need that space.
With more time we’ve been free to get more active in respite foster parenting. (This is like therapeutic babysitting.)This helps us support our fostering friends and their kids. We’re even considering fostering full time again and this time, maybe we’ll get a longer placement. Maybe we’ll get the opportunity to adopt eventually. I could not think of anything I’d like better. Even if that happens I cannot blog about it so don’t expect updates about fostering or adoption until well after the fact.
I could not even begin to consider fostering right now if our daughter had not come forward and offered to give up her room. She feels it is a fair trade to get some sibling experience before she is grown. She will be moving into what is currently an office and the room the dogs prefer to sleep in. It is not glamorous, but I’m going to try to make it homey. People claim unschoolers will become spoiled and self centered. Those people are clearly wrong. I’m impressed and moved by my child’s willingness to make a big sacrifice.
What other adventures and changes have we seen? Well, I’ll have to get to that later. I can say that we’ve gotten more centered, more active, more adventurous and that we’d had a lot of fun.
