Itchy

I have always had the sort of relationship with blogging where I get the urge to post, I map out posts in my head, I plan several posts ahead, I plan series of posts, I have even on occasion done stuff because I knew it would make blog fodder. Not everything would make the blog, but I liked to create posts in my head. I used to take pics just for the blog. Twitter sort of took over that element...my iphone is full of pics I took simply because I wanted to tweet them. I missed blogging though.

When I created this blog I had every intention to blog more often. I even had a great post ready to go about our first week back into the school year. Then stuff happened and I had a different blog post completely done that I could never quite bring myself to post. So that was deleted. And the blog stalled out.

But the last few days I've been...itchy. Itchy to be creative in a way that wasn't knitting, wasn't spinning. I made a new dance bra and thought maybe that was where it was coming from. But that didn't satisfy it. I thought maybe I should haul out my sewing machine and work on stuff there. But that didn't feel right. Finally I pulled out Wreck this Journal and my new one Finish This Book and worked on those for a bit. While I was sketching I realized...I wanted to write. It's been forever since I have properly written.

So I decided to give this blogging thing another go.

Back in September when I was all set to have a great school year and blog about it we were hit damn hard with a family medical emergency. I won't go into details, because that person is intensely private about their life. It did rock me, changed my perspective on what is important and the changes it has brought for my family have been positive as we all heal. The family member who was ill is doing great now, better every day and we are grateful. Blessed.

That set us back in our school year, and since it has felt like every time we get going with our school year we hit a set back. My depression hit me like a truck early in the new year, which made it really hard to get motivated. The twins make getting to school work difficult since they became busy toddlers. As a result we have not accomplished most of what I wanted done this year. But the best part of home schooling is that we can roll with those punches and continue our year on our own schedule and according to my children's needs. They're ahead in some things, behind in others, and we still have goals we need to reach. We will get there, I am sure of it. I'm much better now (better living through chemistry!) and I feel good about where we are and what we need to do.

I joined the executive board the Nova Scotia Home Educators Association, as first chair (go big or go home, lol) and that has proved to be an interesting challenge. I am not sure if I will continue, as there are elements that need to be in place for me to do so, but I would love to see the organization find its feet again. It could be such a great support for the home schooling community, and it has been flailing over the last year or so. I may be a little too optimistic on that front, but we shall see.

I mentioned in a previous post meeting Raina the Halifax Mermaid at World Ocean Day last year. I decided to hire her for Grace's birthday party in March and it was an amazing experience. She and her little sister swam as mermaids with the kids for an hour in the pool, we had cameras and underwater cameras and the kids had a great time. Worth every penny and then some. Cannot recommend hiring a mermaid enough.

A few weeks later my dear friend and fellow knitter and dance teacher had a birthday and hired Raina. This time we sat and drank wine and hung out with a mermaid while dressed in under-the-sea themed outfits. I may have drank too much wine. But we had a blast.

In between there I attended a workshop with Yasmina Ramzy and it was amazing. She is an incredible woman with an incredible history and I learned a lot from her. I also got to bond with my dance family.

And I took a tarot class! Which was really fun and I am enjoying getting to know the cards and learning how to read them. I got a beautiful set of mermaid tarot cards, they are gorgeous.

I've been dancing and knitting and spinning and hanging out with good friends.

The kids are great, they are winding down their activities for the year and we are coming up on year-end recitals, plays and reviews. Cam is in Air Cadets and it has been such a positive experience for him. Grace is finishing her last year in ballet/jazz/tap and looking forward to performing in the recital and then getting to cut her hair. She and Gabriel plan to do circus school as their extra next year. Gabriel has been involved in gymnastics through the rec centre and got to do a course called "All Sorts of Sports" where he gets to try out different things. One week was skateboarding, and he loved it. We may be breaking our "no extras over summer" rule and enroll him in a week long half-day camp in skateboarding. Cam will be away for two weeks in July for cadet camp so if we can plan it to correspond with that and Grace may enroll as well, it would be lovely for all of them.

Things are good on the home front and promise to continue to get better. If we could just pull a lottery win...lol