November. Where did it go? I’m going to download my thoughts and see if it leads me to some coherent closing thought. Here goes…
We had a busy, heavy end to October when we said our final goodbyes to my mother in law, hosted out of state family throughout a 9 day stretch and sandwiched an epic family Disney trip (15 of us in total) in the middle of it all. With all the cousins in California at the same time how could we pass up the opportunity! Our last guests flew home the Friday before Halloween and Saturday was spent pulling together my costume for trick or treating on Sunday. Needless to say, Monday rolled around and our introverted souls needed some serious rest and recovery.
By this time, I had the strong urge to decorate for Christmas (before Thanksgiving…*gasp*) so I dug the stuff out of the attic and went to town. The process involved clearing shelves, deep cleaning, arranging holiday things and lots of Christmas music. This year we’re trying year round homeschooling and have the calendar broken into 6 week terms so simultaneously it was time to think about the upcoming term and choose which books and materials would share the space for this season. It was such a perfect total refresh of our space. I mentioned back in this post how I’d been wanting to transition our decor seasonally and I think I’m finally in a place where it feels like a natural flow and not an extra thing to do.
Cleaning, purging outgrown items from closets, swapping decor in small ways, setting personal goals and making general homeschool plans all comes together and feels like an intentional way to step into the next season with focus. Over the last few years, I’ve done lots of reading and listening on topics like minimalism, habits, routines, various methods of homeschooling and I’m noticing that when I step back from it and give it time, the things I’ve learned that resonate slowly creep their way into my life. It’s not a sudden overnight change. And it’s neat to think about how the same thing is happening with B’s learning. Sometimes it feels like we’re not doing enough, but in those quiet moments of rest, all that came before has time to take root.
I love how learning more about education leads me to look at my own lifelong learning in new ways and gain a deeper understanding of the principles. So I guess all of this is to say, more than I thought was accomplished this month when I take a moment to see it, and there were plenty of precious, cozy and creative moments to be thankful for.
Little Stream Studio 