Not So SAHM

Gathering ideas for our big trip

We’ll be taking a big trip this year; one that’s several weeks long. We’ve done school while traveling before, but I haven’t been very good in incorporating the places we’re traveling through and to into our schooling. We’ve done field trips to places like Boston, Jamestown/Williamsburg/Yorktown, etc. where we go, learn about something, and then come home. We’ve also done school in the car while traveling on family vacations during the school year. I’ve been pretty good at separating fun from school and relegating each to their own separate times.

But I haven’t been very good at doing a more unit study-type of schooling with the idea of having fun learning while having fun traveling.

This year I want to experiment more with “roadschooling” by really diving in. Being deliberate with what we’re learning, but having fun while doing it. Maybe my kids won’t even know they’re “doing school”…

I’ve been using various roadschooling blogs and Growly Notes* to help organize my thoughts. I’m looking forward to the planning phase where I actually start formulating our “curriculum” and deciding how to incorporate the various subjects into daily fun activities.

(Sometimes I like organizing school probably even more than teaching…)

*Speaking of organizing, when we switched over from PCs to Macs I mourned the loss of OneNote. I kid you not. I almost didn’t want to make the switch. Growly Notes to the rescue! Think of it as your brain + a spiral-bound notebook + digital linking abilities. This equals more fun than I should be allowed to have while organizing my thoughts, ideas, links, pictures, lists, tables, etc. Check it out: Growly Notes.

Lensbaby Spark (and hello, remember me?)

My last post was in May of 2012–I have taken a seriously long break! Not that life was ever slow, but it has taken a seriously busy turn these past eighteen months. I miss blogging, though, and there are adventures coming up that I am definitely going to want to share. There are adventures we have taken these past eighteen months that I wish I had shared. Perhaps I can pull out some photos and memories.

I’m going to ease back into this by sharing a couple of pics I took recently with my Lensbaby Spark. I haven’t felt very motivated or inspired in the picture taking department these past eighteen months. I decided to pull out the Lensbaby and attempt to get a little creative–more with post processing than with anything else.

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Hoarders could be filmed in my car

I think everyone has the same reaction when they watch Hoarders: it’s a train wreck that you’re horrified by, yet you can’t manage to turn your head.

This was our car last week:

Please don’t gasp too loudly, I’m baring my soul here. It does make me sick though. There’s literally crap everywhere. There were runts in the seat belt wells. There’s even one right there on the seat waiting for a kid to sit on it. How old is that chocolate milk container? Naked Ken. No words. The four wheels of the car never left the ground. I promise.

Two points in my defense:

We were on a trip. We do not live this way. The front seats of the car look nothing like this. The amount of mess in the car is inversely proportional to one’s age.
There are school books in there! Bottom right corner! The girls actually did school each morning. I guess that was before they opened their candy and shook it at each other and then started throwing things.

Need another look? Overhead:

OMG.

At the end of the trip Du was having to lift Ashlyn out of her seat and put her back in when we made a stop. And it wasn’t like it took the whole trip for the girls to trash the back seat. This is after two days of travel. I’m so glad we didn’t get ants. Sometimes it’s better just to not look behind you.

Too bad we cleaned it out; we could have been reality tv stars.

Kansas Sky

I do understand why they’re called fly-over states. There really are things to see, however, in those states between the East and West Coasts. Things are just more. . . spread. . . out. And you could fall asleep in one part and wake up an hour later, look out the window and think you were in the same part. My background is Georgia, hills and green. It is beautiful out here, just a different kind. And we found plenty to do on our drive. One thing that Kansans are probably great at is studying clouds. The skies grew ugly pretty quickly during our drive, and although we didn’t experience any terrible weather, the cities to the east of us did. This is what we saw:

I edited these to bring out the nuances in the clouds. They’re pretty grainy coming from my iPhone…that adds drama, no?

Ok, this I just darkened a little. To this Georgia girl that is downright scary! I don’t think I’ve ever seen clouds covering 100% of the sky like that where it looks like ocean waves, rolling along. . . and we were in the ocean. You can see the light almost breaking through the clouds and you want to reach up and spread them apart to let the light in and prove that there is peace just beyond the turbulent. What do Kansans see?

Does anyone else see that button-looking, outie part of the cloud in the center of the photo? It’s surrounded by a little halo of light. Crazy! (Click on the picture to see a full size.)

This is the same picture as above. I used the MLR Gritty & Grungy preset in LightRoom (where I do 99% of my editing). I love the look this preset gives. Not as ominous. Below is the original photo. Looks like the clouds are almost touching that barn.

For me, clouds are usually passive objects in the sky that float along lazily, and if you make the time you can determine shapes in them and make up stories. These clouds were active and alive and daring and already telling a story, demanding the same respect that ocean waves do – beautiful, but you know that they are more powerful than you.

St Louis Arch and meeting a blog friend!

The cool thing about blogging is that you can make friends with people half way across the country or around the globe. When we were in St Louis I made sure to get in touch with NV, author of This D*mn House. NV and I “met” when she commented on my post about me mowing my lawn for the very first time. She is good at house DIY. . . Me? Not so much. So I have enjoyed reading her blog and all the projects she has accomplished. She’s also a lover of architecture and I love her posts on the history and architecture of the buildings of St Louis.

N suggested a great BBQ place, Pappy’s, and we met for lunch on a beautiful, sunny day. It was gooooooood!

It was so fun to meet up in person! Thanks, N!

After lunch we headed over to the Arch. Talk about architecture! My photo prompt for the week was to include a paper airplane in a picture. This was the perfect place for that! Enjoy the pics (I’m also playing around with watermarking).

This last picture is so cool because my hubby and girls are the only people in the picture. I didn’t even have to photoshop anybody out!

For the birds

We got to visit with my great aunt recently. Her back porch is very relaxing and we talked for hours. While we were talking I took the opportunity to practice “wildlife photography”. I snicker as I type that because how wild are birds that eat from bird feeders. Still, they are moving targets, I was shooting through glass and screen, and it was really windy. I was able to capture some interesting things.

The woodpecker has a long tongue. You can see that in his photo. I love how the brown…finch is giving me the look while her mate, the redder…finch? is busily eating away. You can see seed shells falling in the picture of the brown…finch? that is sitting straight towards the camera but has his head cocked to one side (and you can see his tongue). Not the best technically, by far, but enjoy!

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