My Gratitude Jar♥

We highly recommend "My Gratitude Jar"
by Kristin Wiens...

You can find the link listed below...

When we take time to be grateful we feel happier...

We challenge you to all make your own Gratitude Jars!

Please show us pictures of your finished jars ♥

You will need pieces of paper so that you can write all the things you are grateful for on the pieces.

Decorate your chosen jar and put the strips of paper with things you are grateful for inside.

When you need to remember what you are thankful for, you can pull the strips of paper out and remind yourself why you should be grateful.

Let us know things you are thankful for...

Wishing you all very hygge, bright blessings♥

Long Story Shortz - My Gratitude Jar - Written and Narrated by Kristin Wiens

Musings of Hope...♥

Just like you, we are still navigating our new normal.  We are doing our best to relax and think through the issues we are facing.  Morning meditation and reading have been calming and soothing, with a little Cosmic Kids yoga thrown in.  My kiddos have immersed themselves in the arts for a long portion of the day.  Their creations range from modeling clay pokemon figures to miniature family members to the fairy tea party pictured above.  My daughter was especially pleased with her modeling clay tea cups, saucers, dishes and fruit, all set up with her other loose parts... absolutely delighted and lost in her imaginary tales... pure bliss♥

I know it doesn't look like it but we too are suddenly home schooling again but this time it's due to the pandemic.  What I like to share with parents who haven't home schooled is... you don't want your home to be just like the institution you just left.  Don't try to recreate school at home.  Home is their safe place, their comfortable retreat from the world and where we can be love and be still.  We also don't focus on the pandemic but do add in a daily update and the new "normals" we need to accommodate and participate in.

We have been reading 'Ominous Campfire Adventures' that we started just before 'World Storytelling Day'.  Instead of saving it for our campfire adventures in summer, we decided to make up a makeshift campfire out of collected sticks, tissue paper, wool and sparkly pipe cleaner!  We added mini marshmallows on skewers to fully immerse in the experience of the Northern Ontario Canada campfire tales.  A special thanks to Grandma (my Mom), for the great series of short stories... a truly awesome Christmas gift!  After this, we will return after a brief intermission, to our morning readings of the screen play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.  I read to the kids over our breakfast and tea in the mornings before school.  My kids are ages are 6, 10, 14 and 16.  They all enjoy this time we share in the mornings and the stories we read!

 

We still enjoy our time in nature especially since the wakening of spring.  So much to explore and discover in spring.  During this time, we have seen the closure of our favourite spaces to hike and explore, but as long as we all shelter in place and do our part to plank the curve, we will be exploring again in the near future.  I'd like to share one of our meditation poetry moments and wish you the peace that comes with stillness...
"Today I'm flying low and I'm not saying a word. I'm letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I'm taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I'm traveling a terrific distance. Stillness. One of the doors into the temple."
~Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings

Today, we received the news with the rest of the province, that we will have another month of our home schooling endeavours but will also have to add in school led instruction time on computers.  This too will be incorporated but it will be added to keep them on track in their studies.  We will still embark on home school interests while we can... reading, art, meditation, yoga and exploring interests.  This time has been scary,  with horrible loss... make sure they have good memories too... Breathe, remind ourselves and them that we are all enough and doing enough.  “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” ~WB Yeats... like the wonderful author Jean Pendziwol says, "don't worry about the pail, just keep the fires lit".  She also wrote this poignant poem about hope for these uncertain times...

I found hope in a cherry tree that places tiny buds

on shivering leaf-bare branches in autumn

knowing that shadows can disappear
and stories can howl like wolves
and snowflakes can be icy and sharp
and there is no way for the tree to be sure
that the buds will ever bloom

But the cherry tree knows it is hope in autumn

that brings flowers in spring

 ~Jean Pendziwol

Thanks so much for joining us... wishing you love, calm, peace and fortitude in these challenging and uncertain times, Sherry♥

A piece of quiet...

In the morning, when kiddos are off to their individual journeys for the day; I find myself sitting with my cuppa in quiet contemplation.

Sitting peacefully in the moment enjoying the now.

 Peace and quiet...

I've always felt the saying should be a piece of quiet.

A time for peace and sitting in the quiet to hear your own thoughts.

It's not always been easy for me to enjoy the now with the "what's next" to accomplish on my list.

I find this time of quiet reflection grounding.

Helping me gather my thoughts, myself for the "what's next".

There will always be a lengthy list of expectations,

of the "things" I "need" to get done.

There will always be a hustle and bustle to the world around us.

Take time to sit and contemplate alone with your cuppa,

or with your dear ones.

Wake up earlier to carve out time for your kids to sit in calm,

quiet reflection before they start their day.

There is so much to be said for this grounding and hygge activity:)

Our poem today...

Brew me a cup for a winter's night.
For the wind howls loud and the furies fight;
Spice it with love and stir it with care,
And I'll toast our bright eyes,
my sweetheart fair.
~ Minna Thomas Antrim

 

Displaying words for comfort and inspiration,

is a beautiful way to gather thoughts for reflection.

They were written and photographed by the lovely

Susan Gaylord and hung in her crab apple tree.

The kids and I love this inspiring tree and think the words should be hung on bunting for an interior display.

They enjoy revisiting past projects of meaning and cringe at the thought of their work being left out to the elements.

Have a blessed and wonderful day my friends.

It's a bright new morning of possibility♥

Provocations with loose parts and play dough♥

Here is a picture story of the creative play that can happen 

from setting up loose parts and play dough provocations:)

 I like to add in authentic resources like the real, metal cookie cutters in a fancy silver tray.

 Small, interesting containers (even the glass ones you see in the pictures) with sorted, various small 

parts and creative tools, are inviting and feed curious minds...

New Baby, New Journey...

Every baby is born into a new family... for that family is forever altered and forever changed by the miracle of life:)  I picked up a lovely new nature journal at Mariposa Market today. We're getting so excited for the new adventures we'll have with the new baby this spring.  It goes well with the fantastic new jogging stroller we picked up with big bicycle wheels;)  Wherever the boys wish us to explore and discover with the new baby... we'll be up to the challenge and have a journal to record our journey in:)

Nature Notes Amazon.ca

 

“Life is a journey, not a destination.”

 Ralph Waldo Emerson