Homeschooling

Posted on December 9, 2017 by Ashley

If you would have asked me when I became a mother if I wanted to Homeschool I would have said HECK NO! I was 100% on the side of public school, and actually thought that homeschool was detrimental to the development of children.

Not joking.

I also was under the impression that only crazy Christians who wanted to protect their children from the corruption of the “real” world homeschooled.

Guys – have I ever talked about that time in my life that I thought the entire world operated in black and white?

I’m so thankful for personal growth, because WOW.

Over the last year and a bit I’ve started to have a passion for homeschooling. There are a number of reasons for that and the closer we get to Kindergarten the stronger this grows. The more we talk about it the more my husband and I feel like this is what needs to happen.

So, why homeschool?

Well, one of our biggest reasons is the fact that I can tailor my children’s learning to their unique interests and learning styles. I never thought about this until this past year while watching Ezekiel’s love of learning develop. He’s such a little sponge and actually gets upset if we don’t do school every day. What he doesn’t realize is that all throughout the day we are actually doing school – just not sitting down writing and colouring. I try to tune in to his interests (currently we are back to being completely obsessed with Thomas and Friends) and then use those interests to challenge his learning. Right now we are working on pen control, confidence with writing, counting, letter sounds and sight words and most of what I do outside of our workbooks centres on Thomas and happens during Ezekiel’s “playtime.” For example, we might count the number of freight cars that Thomas is pulling, talk about what letter Percy starts with or try and draw Gordon while colouring. All of these things are done intentionally but seem like they are just part of our day.

Some other reasons we are leaning towards homeschool is:

Freedom of time to travel without being “pulled” from school.
Ability to homestead and not have to worry about formal school hours during busy seasons.
Ability to help develop strong work ethic and life skills beyond school work.
Ability to focus on our children’s unique personalities and skill sets.

Of course there are definitely downsides to homeschooling but at this point we really feel strongly that the benefits far outweigh the downsides. So with that in mind we power forward and work hard to try and make that a reality for September 2019, which primarily means paying off debt in order to be able to bring me home at least for the majority of the time.

With this being our ultimate goal I figured that this year at home with Ezekiel would provide a great “trial” run with homeschool. I decided that I would undertake home preschool. I had grand plans, I tried laying it all out and building a curriculum while I was on bedrest and waiting for our sweet babe. Then I became a mother of two, life was hectic and I was trying to figure it all out. So my grand plans became my “good enough” plans and we’ve done everything very informally. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t a bit disappointed with my inability to make it more formal. Yet I recognize my limitations and honestly I think we’ve done pretty good considering all things. I try to do some form of school at least 3 times a week and that looks much different each week. What I am so excited about is the fact that I’ve seen Ezekiel advance leaps and bounds from a year ago. He’s a really easy student to teach given that he’s the one asking daily if we can do school and he would honestly sit for a few hours and just learn.

So, this year hasn’t been perfect, and there’s a million and one things I would like to change once kindergarten hits but it has solidified our desire to homeschool even more and for that I’m saying it’s been successful!

Would you consider homeschooling your children?

I plan on sharing a bit more in detail our homeschool journey so feel free to ask some questions and I’ll try and answer!

6 Months

Posted on September 18, 2017 by Ashley

Wow.

How in the world has 6 months gone by since we welcomed our miracle girl into our world? I want to say it seems like yesterday that I was still pregnant and in some ways it does but in more ways Eden has been the perfect completion of our little family that it seems like she’s always been here.

I didn’t expect to love every stage with her because with Ezekiel I loved every stage more than the one before and I thought maybe because of that experience I wouldn’t love the stages as much since I would always be looking forward to the next. I’m happy to say I’m still absolutely loving every stage – newborn to now has been amazing. Watching a little person develop and grow and being an integral part of that process is such a privilege! I know far too many people that don’t get to experience that for many reasons and so I try daily to be very present in the process and be grateful for even the hard days. As always happens in my life I’m finding that even the difficult days don’t seem so difficult until I’m looking at them in the past. The newborn to three months didn’t seem as daunting at the time as they seem now looking back. The lack of schedule, the learning of behaviours, cries, likes and dislikes. The juggling the busyness of keeping two humans alive – all seems so daunting now looking back on it but really in the moment I didn’t mind it. Then the 3-6 months of finally getting into some sort of rhythm coupled with my need to be home resting and becoming comfortable with my own struggles (read about that here) again seems so daunting now on the other side of it but the process didn’t seem so bad. In fact it was invigorating to realize we were getting into a rhythm and schedule finally and my Type A personality rejoiced in what soon would become a bit of predictability.

Yes being a mother of two is not as easy as being a mother of one (to all my twin momma’s out there – you are absolute rockstars!!!) but it is just as rewarding and life giving as being a mother of one. The stages, the discoveries, the developments are all just as worthy of celebration and my desire to celebrate them has been just as strong as when I was experiencing them with my first (to my surprise). No there aren’t as many pictures – mainly because I want to experience it all without the hindrance of taking a million pictures. You could label that as a “second child problem” but I’m labeling it as a “more present mother” problem, which isn’t a problem at all.

Eden is our little sunshine girl. She is pure joy bottled into one little human. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever met such a happy baby. She smiles with her entire body, laughs with the funniest little snorts and loves so fiercely that she can’t control how tightly she grabs you for a hug. Yes, she is INTENSE in all of her joy and that joy overflows into all that know her. I know that she will be a girl and woman that uplifts those around her, who loves beyond her limits and brings life to all who know her. She has already been that to our family and we are so so so lucky to call her our little miracle girl.

Garden Update August 5, 2017

Posted on August 6, 2017 by Ashley

I wrote this post sitting in a car, driving to my parents. It’s a long drive and an even longer one with two kids – one being 4 months old. I figured it was a good time to post another update! We are enjoying our very short trip and I’m really hoping the garden is still doing well when we return! That’s the downside of gardening – travelling is hard to do unless you have someone to tend to the gardens.

It’s been a busy week around here but I still managed to get some gardening done. I finally have all the tomatoes supported, including catching up on the big gardens tomato weave – the pictures I have were taken on Tuesday before I finished the weave. The greenhouse tomatoes have almost grown taller than their supports and still look awesome. The outside potted tomatoes don’t look amazing but they’ve all been fertilized now so hopefully they perk up. The garden peppers seemed to have liked the fertilizer, there are lots of peppers popping up now and they look a lot greener and healthier. We are eating a zucchini a day and I think I’ll be making a lot of zucchini baked goods. I put up a garden net securing it to the garden box and then to the fence for the butternut squash, watermelon, and cucumbers to climb. I haven’t had any flowers or fruit on any of those yet – next year I definitely have to start them early in the greenhouse.

I think that’s it for updates this week. Seemed like the tomatoes are all getting ready to start ripening – then the fun begins!

Disclaimer: you are about to see my yard in its truest form – always cluttered with various things Ezekiel drags around. I did clean it right after these pictures but in the spirit of keeping it real didn’t retake them!

That’s it for this week! Happy gardening friends!

Garden Update July 8,2017

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Ashley

I’d really love to make these updates more regulated – like say – make an update every Sunday. Yet this time in my life and motherhood journey I’m learning to be ok with “good enough” for most things. So I take pictures regularly (confession: currently I have more garden pictures on my phone than kiddo pictures) and when I have some time to sit on my phone (and not scroll Instagram) I’ll write out a post. Right now my baby needs some momma snuggles while sleeping so I have Jessica Jones on Netflix (my husband and I have recently become obsessed with all the Netflix original Marvel shows) and a post to write.

Since I last wrote I’ve actually gotten quite a lot accomplished in the garden. I have all the tomatoes potted up, the tomatoes in the garden are pruned, supported and fertilized. I harvested A LOT of greens and we’ve been enjoying salads daily. The garden is growing amazingly, the wildflowers are blooming more and more each day, the herbs are coming along well, the tomatoes are mostly all flowering and many have tomatoes, and the peppers are finally starting to perk up and we already have a few growing.

This next week there’s a couple “have to” items on my list: hang up a shade cloth in the greenhouse and pot up the rest of the peppers. Along with those two things I’m going to try and work through the rest of the potted tomatoes – prune them, stake them and fertilize them. Lots and lots to do around here!

So here’s the last while in pictures:

Now, here’s the garden today:

Taking Back Control

Posted on July 21, 2016 by Ashley

I’ve been thinking a lot today about living with a chronic illness and/or chronic pain. I bet there’s thousands upon thousands of blog posts on this subject but I process best through writing and so I will add my few words to the millions already written. Grab a coffee with me and keep reading if you’re interested :).

Why this post today? Well I guess it’s because the last couple days I’ve been struggling more with my energy and so I’ve been wondering why. I’ve gone through the mental list of possible reasons and in the end I think it’s just what comes with the territory of chronic illness – and you know, that’s OK. I’ve come to the conclusion that there will always be ups and downs but I really think living well through all of it requires consistency, persistence, and a whole lot of grace.

I’m not quiet about my medical conditions/history, in fact I’m probably annoyingly verbal about it. Yet if you were to meet me and spend a week with me and if I were not to verbalize anything you would never know that I have any sort of condition (granted you could probably pick up on the twisted back if you were really paying attention). In fact I would have never ever given myself a label of “chronic” anything up until a couple years ago. I suppose I never labelled anything until I was trying to conceive and was advised to stop taking my NSAID’s to boost my chances. In that moment I began to understand that I did in fact suffer from chronic pain and had done so for so many years that I can’t remember a time without pain. Despite the chronic aspect of my pain I continued to live well and it really didn’t impact much of anything in my life.

Fast forward to the last 7 months.

I was just coming out of my full time working momma fog and began to realize that I had been feeling significantly unwell. I’ve already wrote about my health struggles but it’s only recently that I have accepted that this too could very well be a chronic thing. The thing is, it’s only the last 4-6 weeks that I’ve began feeling well again despite my health issues. I feel as though I’m finally rising above the fog and now that every serious scenario has been ruled out I can finally begin to gain control again. See, in the midst of all of this I had allowed myself to spiral downwards in a number of ways. I felt out of control of my health as a whole and because of that I began to feel out of control of other areas of my life – spiritually, mentally, and financially. I am so thankful for amazing physicians who allowed me to find solutions – even if they are just helping symptoms at this point – so that I could be lifted out of the dizzy fog and back onto solid ground.

A couple weeks ago I made the conscious decision that I was now going to gain back some control. Obviously I know I’m never fully in control but there are always steps we can take to live well and live responsibly in a way that benefits our own lives and therefore the lives around us. The hard part is realizing that it is our responsibility to live well, and living well always takes a certain amount of effort and consistency. I know from past experience that it is very possible to live well despite chronic illness and pain and I am determined to get back to that point. Here’s what I’m doing to get to that point:

Physical

Daily walking – this means getting up as early as 0445 in the morning and walking for a minimum of 30 minutes as well as getting out for walks during the day. There’s not a lot I can do safely in terms of exercise but walking is easy, cheap and safe.
3x/week body weight exercise – a lot of the time this is a very short amount of time and crammed into the daily routines of life. It looks like dance parties with my son incorporating squats, planks, push-ups etc, or cooking supper while doing squats, or planking during Ezekiel’s bath time.
Eating fresh and eating green – having the garden has helped a lot with this part and I’m not being strict yet because I know it will be a natural evolution of life but I am trying to be far more conscious of what goes into my mouth.

Mental

Podcasts – I’ve been listening to a lot of health and wellness podcasts that have greatly enhanced my mental health. I love learning but rarely have time to do new learning so this is something that’s easy to do while walking and driving.
Sleep – I’ve been getting to bed at a consistent time and waking at a consistent time.
Walking and exercise also contributes to mental wellness.

Spiritual

Meditation – I’ve committed to a daily meditation using an app. I don’t outline a specific amount of time or what I want to accomplish – all of that will come with practice.

Financially

Keep the credit cards at home – I’ve taken them out of my wallet and put them away in a drawer. I don’t do much online shopping so that’s not even a temptation for me but I consistently have been using my credit cards when I run out of cash and then paying them off with my pay cheques instead of just keeping myself accountable to the budget. I’m determined to be credit card debt free in the next few months so that I can focus on paying student loans/debts. The easiest way to get rid of the temptation is to remove it all together.
Strict grocery budget – I spend a ridiculous amount of money on food. So I’ve instituted a strict grocery budget and I’m following it by using a calculator in the grocery store which helps me to say “no” to those extra items that I don’t really need but think I want. When I go to the farmers market I take only the amount of cash left over from the grocery store and leave my wallet in the car so I’m not tempted to by anything extra.
Drink drip coffee – this is huge for me guys. This was the hardest one to come to terms with. If I have some extra money in the budget I’ll buy my special coffee but otherwise I’ll drink the drip coffee that my husband drinks.

There are sacrifices that need to be made but I know that these small sacrifices now will reap amazing rewards when it comes to living well and especially living well with chronic illnesses and pain. Each part of our lives are intertwined and when one part is suffering the other parts are sure to follow which is why I’m addressing each area of my life in order to gain back wellness.

The end goal is to be in optimal health before getting pregnant with our next child and I’m determined to reach that goal.

Garden Update July 17

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Ashley

How did three weeks go by? It’s been a busy time around here. The first of those 3 weeks was full of work for me, I worked 6/7 days which was nuts. After that I spent time catching up around the house and garden and then we were off to Saskatchewan for a wedding. This past week I’ve been doing things here and there around the house, doing a TONNE of walking (a post on that to come soon with an update on my health) and a couple night shifts thrown in there. So to say we’ve been busy is a bit of an understatement but it’s been good, so so good.

The rain hasn’t stopped in what seems like weeks. The yard and gardens are water logged and squishy and I’m really hoping for some sun this week to help the veggies grow. Despite the lack of sun things seem to be doing well although my tomato plants are really begging for sun, a lot of the fruit is split on the bottoms and the leaves are curling on a lot of plants – sure signs of overwatering.

I’ve had quite a bit of harvesting to do, mostly leafy greens, lots of kale and swiss chard. There have been 4 tomatoes that we have enjoyed and 2 zucchini’s which have been sautéed and loved. The spinach and radishes are completely done, pulled and composted and I’ve replaced them with three different types of lettuce. I thought we would be drowning in greens but actually we keep running out and having to harvest more! I’m finding that I’m just becoming more creative in incorporating them into our meals and so far everyone has enjoyed it which is a very good thing :).

Despite me not writing posts with updates I’ve been taking pictures with intentions of blogging so here’s pictures from the week of July 3.

Now from the week of July 10:

Finally, this past week:

Well that’s it for now. Hopefully this week I’ll have time to do some more blogging that’s not just gardening.

Ciao friends!

Garden Update June 26

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Ashley

I’ve been waiting all day to be able to post this. I literally had these photos done by 730 this morning and here it is 1030 at night when I should be sleeping. It’s been a good day but a day that has been full of family and friends being together and the in between has been time to sit and just be. So I may pay for this in the morning but I really wanted to get this update up.

The garden is thriving and I couldn’t be happier. We are now enjoying garden goodies daily. One of my regrets is not planting more lettuce earlier on but I will be planting more this week.

Let’s start in the big garden, the tomatoes are doing lovely. I must admit though, they are now getting to the point of growing like crazy and I’m a little overwhelmed with the upkeep. I thought I’d be able to do weekly up keeping but I’m finding it now has to be done every few days. I can’t complain though, they have some beautiful looking tomatoes on them!

I have thinned everything out to the best of my ability and now it’s just weeding and harvesting to do. One variety of carrot did really well, the other is pretty sparse. The seeds were a few years old so that’s likely why. My terrible planting is really evident by how much (or little) space is between things. I’ll be pulling all the radishes this week. We aren’t huge radish eaters so I didn’t plant a lot but what I did plant has done really well. I’m actually really impressed because I’ve tried to grow them several times with no luck. The three varieties of lettuce I tried growing did absolutely nothing – there is some romaine growing though. In the place of the radishes and where the lettuce didn’t grow I’ll be planting a mixed variety of lettuce which I have been growing in a container and we really like. I’m not sure how the beets are doing, but judging by their tops I think they are ok. The spinach and kale are doing really great, I did a big harvest today which is almost gone already, we are eating greens like crazy lately.

Now the smaller garden:

The butternut squash plants are struggling, I’m not sure if I let them grow too long in small pots before planting them. I’m going to pick up a plant tonic to try out and see if that makes them happier.

The spaghetti squash, zucchini’s, and cucumbers are doing well though:

The pumpkin seeds I thought were duds finally sprouted. I doubt anything will produce from them but I’m willing to wait and see.

The flowers are doing well other than the Violas which I’m pretty sure never germinated, there are some plants growing there that I’m almost positive are just weeds but I can’t pull them just in case!

The greenhouse gardens are doing well. Everything is coming up, some more slowly than others but I have high hopes. I ended up deadheading the snapdragons after this photo.

The greenhouse plants seem to be doing well – the peppers especially. The tomatoes I’m not sure about, one of them seems to just be shooting high with very little branches. I’m interested to see if it produces much. I’m really excited about the amount of blooms starting on the habanero’s and there’s a few peppers growing already.

The deck tomatoes are doing so much better than I expected and our container strawberries started to really produce!

Now it’s way past my bedtime and 5am is going to come quickly! I have some posts brewing in the back of my mind so I hope to get some time to jot those down. For now I’ll just say see you next week! If you have a garden blog please share it with me, I’m obsessed with browsing gardens 🙂