Suited up and ready to work

Big progress on both project fronts last week!

First up, at home: Emma and I loaded 900 pounds (literally 900) of stuff into neighbor Jodi's utility trailer, and then Frank and Emma and I unloaded all 900 pounds into the transfer station pit and watched their heavy machinery make that 900 pounds look like tidbits. Always an interesting experience going to the dump!

All that quantity of stuff came from nearly 30 years of... not hoarding exactly. It is more laziness or a lack of ruthlessness about getting rid of stuff. In any case, Frank and I share the trait to varying degrees, and there is a lot of never or no longer valuable stuff in our house, yard, and garage.

But its quantity is greatly reduced now! Feels great! We cleaned out under the deck (swing set, a muffler, old tiles, a dessicated Christmas tree, and other flotsam and jetsam), hauled about 8 eighty pound set-in-the-bag bags of concrete from under the rose of Sharon, finally parted with a bunch of toddler toys that have been rotting and rusting away in the play log cabin (and making a cozy home for ginormous spiders), and loaded up a bunch of stuff that we have been pre-dumping into the garage for the past several months (old carpet pad, old subfloor, old toilet seats, a dead boom box, and much, much more).

On the wedding front, Frank has ordered a suit and I have ordered four (yes, four) dresses. We'll know this week if any of these options will be fabulous enough. If not, we'll break down and do some in-person shopping.

MJ and I met out at the farm for another work day. Unfortunately, this was the day after the aforementioned 900-pound dump run, so I was only good for about three hours. I knocked down a sagging section of fence and weeded around the play area, and then I did the very satisfying job of cleaning out a couple of overgrown horseshoe pits that MJ hopes will get used during the reception. Wheeling my debris piles off to the pre-dump pile about did me in, so I called it a day!

And then yesterday was Seattle Pride. Niece Maddy and I marched with the ACLU, had a blast, and about killed our feet. My Fitbit tells me I walked more than 7 miles yesterday, between pre-, parade, and post- walking. We finished off the day by walking her dog, Kodi, to my house for (our) dinner, and then she walked him home again! The woman is a badass.

So, today, I'm having a much needed rest day. Frank is off, so that worked out nicely, and we've had a lovely day together. We spent some of it chatting with Koyo about his experience of Pride (positive) and other random topics (he learned the phrase "speaking of which" today, which tells you a little what the conversation was like). Then I ran a few errands, which mostly involved sitting in the car. Perfect!

A tale of two summers

I have two big projects going on this summer: emptying out our house in anticipation of our departure, and helping to prep the farm for MJ's wedding.

The former had been delayed by number of factors (Frank's bday party, LIFE is Good, trailer swap, and, oh yeah, my procrastination), but I got it underway in earnest these past couple weeks by cleaning out Koyo's room (as it's now called with the arrival for the summer of a  Japanese student--Frank's friend from Kendo--here until he leaves for UND in August) and starting to empty out the tremendously overstuffed laundry room.

Koyo's room is where we had stored a whole bunch of things (things we considered "keepers" before we decided to hit the road again, including our 800+ VHS tapes) while Frank redid the flooring in the basement family room. So that was a big job. Some got relegated to the donation pile I'm growing near our front door, and a lot got moved elsewhere in the house.

In case you're wondering, after much debate, we're keeping most of the VHS collection. VCRs can still be found, and it would cost thousands to re-create the library on DVD or cloud. But problem: where to store them. Solution: the murder room. It's a cubby in the basement, behind the furnace. It had been open to the furnace area, but when Frank built the second closet in Koyo's room, it became its own little space behind its own little door. Chloe and Casey took one look and dubbed it the murder room, and so it is now named.

Did I say emptying Koyo's room was a big job? Ha. Yeah. The laundry room puts it to shame. Our laundry room is large, with eight big deep shelves. LOTS of storage space. And we have used it well, most recently as a dumping ground for "keepers" scavenged from all over the house. The room had become so crowded that it was down to a single walkway to the machines. Not cool.

But it's better already. A significant portion of the keepers turned out not to be keepers after all. We decided to keep our LPs due to sentimental value (plus, they sound better, says Frank) and part with our cassette tapes. The LPs joined the VHS tapes in the murder room.

A significant portion of what's left in the laundry room (not including sporting goods and Christmas decorations) is trash, not even worth donating after nearly thirty years of dust, damp, and neglect. I see at least one dump run in my future.

As for the aforementioned sporting goods and Christmas decorations, I'm ready to be done with 90% of it. We'll see how Frank and MJ feel.

The last category in there is paint and other home-improvement supplies. I suspect at least half of that can go, but Frank is more familiar with what's there.

As for my other project, I had my first workday at the farm yesterday. MJ and I worked together to rake out the amphitheater, bridal walkway, and play area, and we strolled all the grounds making my assignment list. I'm the only member of the crew who doesn't work, so I'll be out there on my own some days. Pity me: all alone on wooded acreage with a couple of friendly dogs.

It's a hard life, but somebody's gotta live it.

How it will be

How it was

Tent trailer in action

Farewell, old friend

We dropped our tent trailer at its new home today. Sad to see it go, happy to see it already getting some love from its new owners (especially the 10yo!), exciting to take this step toward our new adventure.

Onward!

It's here!

But we're too tired to enjoy it! 😀

Book review: The Five Second Rule

The Five Second Rule is by Mel Robbins, a no-nonsense self-help guru I think I'd enjoy having a beer with. She mentioned the five second rule almost in passing in her TedX talk and was flooded with comments from people it helped. So, she published this book.

The TedX bit is very short. The book should have been shorter. It's full of (cringe-inducingly unedited) testimonials, and Mel made the unfortunate decision to introduce the testimonials by telling you what they say. Then you read it yourself. So, especially the early chapters *really* drag without giving you any great quantity of practical info.

The later chapters are better, and the book as a whole is, well, a miracle cure for procrastination.

When I started reading the book, I was procrastinating many things, but the most public and pressing thing was my one-hour talk for LIFE is Good Unschooling Conference. I had nothing done, just a collection of links and some half-assed scribbled notes. I sat down with the book one day, got about ten pages in, and then got up and started writing my talk. I made significant and high quality progress on that talk and its accompanying slides for three days in a row, and then it was DONE. What's more, it was done two days before my personal deadline and five days before the actual presentation. If you know me, you know how unprecedented this is.

And I hadn't finished the book! The Five Second Rule is life-changing. Skim or ignore the boring, repetitive bits, pick out the good parts version, and watch things start to happen.

Also, definitely do the free 31-day coaching Mel links to in the author blurb area. Good stuff!

Spoiler: One of the lessons in the mentoring asks you to do something you've been procrastinating. That lesson hit my inbox maybe ten days after I read the book. Friends, there wasn't anything. I couldn't think of anything I was procrastinating because I'D DONE OR STARTED EVERYTHING. Seriously. Miracle cure.

Cleaning is hard

I cleaned 14 years of road dirt out of the tent trailer today. So. Tired. But it looks good. Then I closed it up. It's not the last time--we'll open it up again to give our friends who are buying it a setup/takedown lesson--but it was the last time with it as *ours*. Bittersweet.

BUT that gets us one big step closer to moving it out of the back yard and moving the new trailer in. We pick up the new one tomorrow!!

After cleaning, I took Rigby to the vet for her annual exam and vaccinations. I've also (today and previously) stocked up on food, flea meds, and kitty toothpaste, so she is cleared for launch! I'm really hoping she'll immediately find the new trailer homey and more secure than she found the tent trailer. (Have I mentioned it has walls?!) I trust she'll adapt in any case. What choice does she have?

I was going to wash the exterior of the tent trailer tonight (we have light until 9:30 these days), but I am beat. ¡Mañana!

Instead, I vacuumed out the basement bedroom, which we have been readying for our summer guest, Koyo. He's a student here and a friend of Frank's from Kendo. He'll stay with us for two months, starting next week, until he moves to his new school in North Dakota (brrr). I'm nervous about having someone in our space again, especially given how busy this summer is, but he's extremely nice and Frank and I are both really looking forward to learning more about Nihon.

And now I'm drinking some of the beer our bandmates left as tribute and pondering all the goodness of the weeks ahead, god willing and the creek don't rise.

We join our story already in progress

If I try to catch this blog up with everything we've done since the last post... No, there's too much. Let me sum up.

Currently:
- Frank and I and Rigby the cat are living at home, cleaning out our lives.
- Frank has two new knees and is working part-time to supplement our income. He just celebrated his 70th birthday in grand style, with a birthday bash where he got to provide the musical entertainment (along with some fellow musicians and his faithful Hot Backup Chicks).
- I am still joyfully, gainfully unemployed--coming up on three years post-MS. Wh00t! At the moment, I'm playing the role of a 50s housewife and loving it. #whoknew
- MJ is getting married in August! She and her fiancé, Joe, live in a cute apartment in Arlington near their pack of friends.
- Chloe is coming up on her two-year anniversary as a resident of Minneapolis. She recently completed her first term at U of M on her way to obtaining her BA in history.

After MJ's wedding, Frank and I are hitting the road again. To that end, we are trading in the tent trailer for a travel trailer. Walls! Just park and sleep! Such luxury! A local unschooling family is buying the tent trailer, so that feels good. Rigby will come with us and will just have to adapt. MJ and Joe will rent our house, lose their commutes, and get a dog.

We have no itinerary. We don't care much where we go. Everyplace is just right.

Now we're cooking

The house is full of the aroma of roasting beef, heavy on the onions and garlic. This is the perfect accompaniment to our overall sense of accomplishment: Today, we finally (finally!) took real steps toward cleaning out our house in preparation for either renting it out or selling it at the end of the summer. Huzzah!


But we **almost**didn't. We **almost** wimped out again. Frank and I had resolved earlier in the week to, at the very least, make a bit of progress on Fridays and Saturdays, our habitually emptiest days. Great plan! And then suddenly this morning we realized, oh shit, TODAY is Friday. Feet dragging, we started making lists and scoping things out (aka, stalling). But, lo and behold, a plan did begin to form, and we found ourselves not only laying some necessary groundwork but actually implementing the plan. Wow! Wondrous!


Today's steps: (1) rescuing from the garage those few items that aren't outright trash, and (2 and the part that happily snuck up on us) putting a bunch of other dump-bound stuff into the garage, where that "one big pile of garbage" can await a Designated Dump Run Day(tm). These efforts have made a measurable and therefore highly encouraging visual difference in our home. We're happy!


To cap off all this goodness, I just tried on an old pair of size 10 505s AND THEY FIT. My time at the gym since January is paying off!! Feels great!!


And soon there will be roast beef. Life is good!

I napped through 4:20 4/20

This is why it's kind of silly for me to live in a state where marijuana is legal.


But... It's 4/20, which means I've been off Facebook for just shy of three weeks. As you can see, I have not filled my FB hours with blogging. Apparently I don't have a burning need any more to broadcast the details of my life. I do miss hearing about yours a bit. Send me an email! Frank can PM you my address.


Keeping up with current events takes maybe ten minutes a day. I'm reading a lot less opinion and analysis these days and sticking to just the facts. It's nice. I'm informed and able to respond where needed but no longer embroiled. It's much easier to see now how much of my day was taken up with repeated coverage of the same news.


I have no amazing advances in productivity or creativity to report. But maybe the "quiet" is starting to sink in. We'll see.

Is this thing still on?

I'm taking a break from Facebook. Last night I went through Facebook's security checks and numerous confirmations and deactivated my account. It would probably have been easier to adopt a dog (one of the other coping mechanisms I considered) than to turn off my Facebook account. The site's level of attachment to me doesn't strike me as healthy.


Apparently it's been a codependent relationship all along and I just didn't know it.


Anyway, I'm taking a break. I have spent years as a regular contributor to the Book of Face, and in particular have spent the last year and a half or so using it with great intensity due to the political mess that is these US of A right now.


And I've lost something along the way, some ability to just be, without reaching for my smartphone and without other people's words, concerns, and outrage crowding my head.


What's next? I don't know. The fun will be in finding out. Today, because I reached for my smartphone, I started with a little blogging. I have no idea if that will turn into a regular thing, so I make no promises.


But blogging without obligation--blogging for fun!--used to be a thing I did. Maybe it will be again.

Frank and I are on the road

While the five kids and the cat guard the house, Frank and I are on the road. If you want to follow our adventures, visit his blog or my travel blog.

Aaaand we're back

MJ and Chloe start at the UW as Juniors on Jan. 5. It was their first-choice school, so this is pretty freaking cool. They'll live at home and commute by bus at least for a while.

Today is orientation and class signup.

How to talk to teenagers and young adults

A lesson or reminder for all who need it (including me).

1. Happy to see her? Say so. Show it with your face. Light up your eyes.
2. Unless it’s to offer an enthusiastic compliment, do not comment on his clothing, shoes, accessories, tattoos, hair, weight, or anything else appearance-related—especially in the first five minutes. If you don’t feel complimentary about any aspect of his appearance, go back to #1.
3. Ask what she’s been up to. Listen to the answer and then DON’T JUDGE. If you don't like the choices she is making regarding college or career or how she spends her free time, do not say so or in any way reveal it. Don’t offer advice. If you can’t think of anything else to say besides judgment and advice, simply ask what she likes or doesn’t like about what’s been going on.
4. Ask him for a movie, book, TV show, or game recommendation. Young people are often voracious consumers of media of all types, and the choices they make about what to consume are hugely varied from week to week. If he knows you at all, he is very likely to immediately think of something he’s seen or read that will be up your alley, or he’ll say, “I don’t think you would like what I’ve been reading,” and that’s a great conversation starter right there.
5. If her skills lean that way and the timing is right, ask her for help with that problem you’ve been having with your electronics, car, cat, leaky faucet, whatever. This shows that you know what her skills are and that you value them.
6. Listen, listen, listen. You are in the presence of a great mind that has matured in a completely different culture from the one you grew up in. Take a peek at his perspective on life and the world.
7. If she doesn’t seem interested in talking to you, don’t take it personally. By the time most kids turn 16, they have given up on adults' ability to really talk to them. It might take a while for her to recognize that you are worth her time. Meanwhile, find a way to set her free. “Would you like to go out to the yard and see the dog?”
8. Make yourself available for a conversation as equals whenever he gives you a chance to show what you’re made of.

Got more? Add them in the comments.

How to raise a good writer



The true alchemists do not change lead into gold;
they change the world into words. ~ William H. Gass

This is my tried and true approach to raising a good writer.

1. Make words a fun, happy, safe, communal thing in your home. Play with words (knock-knock jokes, Mad Libs, magnetic poetry, any of dozens of genuinely fun, noninstructional card and board games, etc.). Point out clever phrasing when you notice it. Read great (fun!) novels and interesting (fun!) reference books together. Talk about how ads in magazines and signs on businesses are worded and why it might or might not generate any business. Laugh together over words and about words.
   
2. Love words yourself and let it show.
   
3. Fill your home with paper, notebooks, a large variety of pens and pencils, computers with word-processing software and access to the Internet. These are toys for writers! A trip to the office-supply store is bliss.
   
4. Learn to distinguish between writing (content), handwriting, and adherence to rules for spelling and grammar. They are very different things, and a person can be great at any one of them without having any special talent for the others. Also, real writers have keyboards and editors; your child can rely on that, or get through life with spell-checkers and grammar-checkers like most of the known universe.
   
5. Never, ever, ever point out spelling or grammatical errors in a young person's writing. Some people's passion for writing will stand up to this kind of abuse, but it shouldn't have to. Keep in mind that using creative spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure is a natural phase of early writing. Most of us do eventually learn where the period goes and that "cat" is spelled with a "c." Trust.
   
   And meanwhile, focus on content. Share your natural enthusiasm for that, and be cognizant of the fact that by sharing his writing with you, your child is bestowing an honor. Appreciate it!
   
   Note: There is one time when it's okay to offer yourself up as proofreader and that's when your kid is submitting his writing for consideration in order to meet his own goal: winning a prize, getting published, gaining admittance to college, things like that. Otherwise, wait to be asked.
   
6. Protect your child's creativity from writing curricula and well-meaning friends and relatives. The approved essay format, with its rigid structure and counted sentences and paragraphs, can stifle creativity. And Aunt Martha's kindly meant comments to your seven-year-old about subject-verb agreement might serve only to dampen a budding writer's joy in all that is wondrous about writing. Step up and step in, if for no other reason than to show your child that she has choices.
   
7. Respect every writer's privacy. The things your child writes are his to share or not share as he chooses. In the absence of an invitation—and, no, that paper or journal left in plain sight is not an invitation—do what you have to do to control your urge to peek.
   
8. After creating a home where writing is valued and considered fun, check to see if your kid is a writer right now. She might not be, and that's okay! If she is, you will know it; writers write and nobody has to make us do it.
   
   If she isn't, repeat steps 1 through 7, not with the goal of making her into a writer but because words are a playground you can enjoy as a family.

Unschooling my cat, part 2: Letting go

My cat continues to remind me of unschooling lessons I had supposedly already learned.

We made the decision when Rigby was young (she's going on 2 now) that she would be an indoor cat. Indoor cats are safer, live longer, and have lower veterinary bills, and they tend to be cleaner and free(er) of fleas. It was a very sensible decision with her and our best interests at heart, and when she was a kitten, it worked beautifully.

But there developed a problem: Rigby loves the outdoors.

She began to cry to go out, sitting at our sliding glass door for hours--really--yowling like the Siamese she is for her freedom. She'd take periodic breaks from the yowling to come over and bite my ankles to make sure she had my attention. On the occasions when we would give in and take her outside, usually on a leash which she tolerated sort of as a fair trade for some outside time, she would romp and run and chase bugs and look like, well, a cat. A happy cat.

She loves it. LOVES it. Loves it. It is her favorite thing.

Like good unschooling parents, we've paid attention. We remembered that our comfort level is not the most important thing, and that being uncomfortable isn't fatal. We began to prepare for Rigby to be an indoor/outdoor cat, with some safeguards to make us feel better about the whole thing but primarily focused on this clearly communicated preference of our youngest, furriest daughter. We took her to get the feline Leukemia vaccine we had previously declined. We bought her a collar with a tag so kind people can help her find her way home should she wander. And we kitty-proofed the yard as much as it is possible to do, so that mostly she will remain in our yard.

Then we opened the door and let her out.

I wish you could see the changes in her. Outside, she moves with obvious pleasure around our yard, satisfaction in every step and radiating a clear sense that she is in her place. If you're out there with her (which she loves), she comes over to rub against you and head-butt and let you know how pleased she is with life in general. She climbs trees and stalks everything that moves and hides from loud noises. If I kick the soccer ball, she will sometimes chase it, and she has taken to sitting near me when I hula hoop, apparently not concerned by the fact that I drop the hoop nearly as often as not.

She has struck up a fascinating and hugely entertaining friendship with Roxie, the dog next door. They peek at each other through the knotholes and gaps in the fence, sticking paws or noses through, swat at each other, and then race together down the fenceline to the next peekhole to do it again there.

Inside, she's calmer, more affectionate, and just happier. I don't know how to explain it, but we can all see it.

We have seen the law of diminishing marginal utility very much in practice. She used to be desperate to go outside. Now, she still loves it, but if we leave the door open for her, she's in as much as out.

And she just thinks we are pretty darn cool. As I write this post, she is wandering the yard apparently giving me no notice. But when I went inside a moment ago, she immediately came to the door to call me back. Like most unschooled "kids," she enjoys being with her parents! :-)

My unschooler is interested in...

At the Wide Sky Days Unschooling Conference in 2012, Pam Sorooshian and Laura Flynn Endres gave a talk together and did a really cool thing: they put up posterboard around the room; asked people for kids' interests to put in as headers for the boards, such as Harry Potter, acting, Fibonnaci sequences, whatever; and then gave sticky notes to everybody in the room (about 100 of us, I suppose). We all went around the room putting sticky ideas onto the boards for ways kids can deepen their involvement in and exposure to the posted interests.

It was a remarkable experience, the hive mind at its finest. We created such a vibrant, varied library of resources. I wanted to do more and more.

So, after we got home from San Diego, I started a Facebook group that runs along the same principles. People create posts about something their kids (or they - we're not age-ist!) are interested in, and other members put in ideas for learning more. I have discouraged commentary on other people's suggestions, since you never know what a given family will find enriching and many families might use the same posts for ideas. I have also discouraged discussion of unschooling philosophy itself. There are many other places where that can happen; I don't think people need one more place to argue.

The result has been pretty freaking cool, far beyond what I imagined when I got it started. In a little over five months, we have gathered 1250 idea-makers together. People post topics ranging from... Well, I'll share a few of the ones at the top of the group today. That will give you an idea:

- physical comedy
- Japanese
- boats and water
- g.a.m.e systems and a.p.p.s (trying to avoid spam)
- narration
- Legos
- and much, much more.

It is fun, inspiring, and WAY too busy for me to keep up with. Fortunately, with so many contributors, people are assured of having some collaborators whenever they post.

If you're interested in some ideas for your kids or yourself, come join us. My unschooler is interested in...

What's on our coffee table today

Netflix - Beasts of the Southern Wild
VHS - Moonstruck
Magazine - Seventeen with Ke$ha on the cover
CD - Greybeards' LiG song list
DVD - Labyrinth
Books:
- Dinosaur A-Z: For kids who really love dinosaurs
- Calvin & Hobbes 10th Anniversary Book
- a few coffee table books that never leave
Hi-Q (a little puzzle game for one)
Coasters - because "Use a coaster" is one of the rules we do have in our house
My wrist brace (I never leave home without it)
MJ's bottom (attached to her body of course)

Friday night poetry

Long conversations at midnight.
Oh-dark-thirty, he murmurs,
as we cover our yawns
and take turns being
Interested.


--------------------------------------------------------------


Didn't we do this before?
Were we here once before,
In this place of madness and pain,
Or was it only a dream?

It's all so familiar.