Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Jake:


Anne:

We went *Not Back to School* shopping today... Jake and Sam are going to Vermont to attend Grace Llewellyn's *Not Back to School Camp* next Tuesday. It's a pretty rustic place, so we needed to supplement their *warmth* factor in their clothing...

Below are shots from our favorite *fairly nearby* grocery store, Wegmans, in Johnson City (an hour away from us).






Ya know...since we got home from the conference, my heart has just been BUSTING with deep gratitude for so much. For HOME, for my honey, for my Jake, for my Sam, for our pets, for our land, for my Jeep, even, because I really don't like driving Dave's huge truck and that's what we took to the conference (and I have to drive most of the time or I get car sick)...

It seems that every moment, I am just breathing in a deep gratitude for all that I have, all that I Am, and for this glorious life...

But none more so than watching this beautiful unschooling in action happening in the hearts and minds of my boys...

Our friends from England sent us the dvd of *Flight of the Conchords*, an HBO show. We LOVE it. LOVE the music, especially.

So while at Target yesterday, Sam found the soundtrack and a live cd as well. We bought them both and listened to them in the car...LOVING them so much!

Someone suggested (I'm not sure whom, as all of our thoughts are so in alignment with each other, swirling around each other all of the time, bouncing off of each other...) that Jake and Sam do one of the *Conchord* songs for the talent show at Not Back to School Camp.

So once we got home, I got on the computer to find guitar chords. We were so happy to find LOADS of *Conchord* songs at *Ultimate-Guitar.com*!! Cool.

We browsed through them to see which ones would be do-able. And then we found it.

So Jake and Sam began the process of learning to play and sing the song *If You're Into It*...which is really hysterical (Jake is doing Jemaine's part).

There were many ups and downs and highs and lows in the learning process...I spent quite some time re-typing the words and chords onto a Word document to make it easier for them to read and follow...


...Sam sat at the table for SO long, listening to the original song and playing along with it...trying to get the strumming pattern down and the rhythm of the words...


(...and Jake took many breaks to play his new, highly anticipated game, *Spore*, on Sam's computer...)



But they DID IT!! (of COURSE!!)

They weren't quite ready to share their performance, but they promised they would be today. I am SO excited!!!

As I wrote this morning on the Shine list:

Have you BREATHED in the GLORY of this life yet today (I know you just got up!!)??
I can feel it from my toes to the depths of my being and up to the top of my head!!
And I will do my best to hold onto this gratitude all day, allowing it to show me the way to connection with my kids and Joy in my life
(because connection with my kids BRINGS joy into my life!!)!

*How Can I Connect With My Children Today,
Expand Their Worlds,
Bring Joy into their Lives,
Nurture and Encourage What They Love to Do??*


I will start with this place of deep gratitude for this life...and for my children...

All is truly well...

Friday, June 6, 2008

Anne:

Jake and I feel like we're taking a step *back* in our guitar playing, as we are learning MUSIC THEORY and it is oh so challenging *at times*...just like it was when we first picked up those guitars and started learning and playing chords two years ago...

But here's a cool story (if you have a minute...if not, then just browse down...the pictures are still lovely without the stories!)...

At a conference recently, I asked a professional musician about how he learned to play guitar. I got a very long story about how he was *forced* to do so, and yet he was happy with that and he would not have, in fact, met his wife had he not been *forced* to learn to read music and play several instruments.

::ahem::

Yes, this was an unschooling conference. He was new. (And the happy part of *that* story is that he told me that it was *my* talk that put them on the *definitely unschooling* path, from *thinking about unschooling*...YAY!!)

:)

He highly recommended I *force* my kids to learn to read music because they have a desire to get better at playing the guitar.

Well, I don't do such things. I Trust My Children and I Trust Their Hearts. If learning to play the guitar better truly IS something that resides deep in their hearts, then they won't let any obstacle get in the way.

And, once again, my children have proven that Trust to be right on, as Jake really DOES want to learn how to play better, and now we, together, are learning it all...from the beginning (even though I already know how to read music) (and even if *neither* child decided to NOT learn to read music, that would be really wonderful, too, as I know their hearts would just be following *other* directions, being fulfilled in other ways, and the Universe would have WONDERFUL things awaiting for them in *those* directions, also!).

So we have gone from playing incredible, beautiful music using just the CHORDS and our VOICES to painstakingly and repetitively pluck-plucking out *Jingle Bells* and *Michael Row the Boat Ashore* (oh, but I just found *Edelweiss*, which gives us a little more variety), let alone actually *practicing* scales in order to really KNOW them (I have, in the past, argued with people who say they *practice* an instrument...I insist that they are *playing* because that utilizes *this moment* and shows they are enjoying it *now*, rather than merely *practicing* for some future moment..but I concede, with apologies, because at this writing, I feel there is absolutely no reason to be playing and learning those scales except to be better at the guitar for some point in the future... ;).

This is the view from my perspective...if you can insert both frustration and sheer JOY, that would be more accurate.




This one's for my Dad...I made his famous potato salad this morning (with slight variations and he might argue that it's not *his* potato salad anymore, but we still call it that, anyway...and I do believe Sam ate half of that salad today...a salad that had eight eggs in it and four pounds of potatoes...)...



Jake:

(Jake here, decided to actually write today. -Grins-) It stormed last night. On and off really, pouring rain for three minutes and then calm for the next thirty. A cup of buttercups tipped over amidst it all. Does this one count as another Nature shot?