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This blog is almost 20 years old and has mostly been a journal shared with a few people I know from real life who are interested in me enough to keep up. I frequently revisit the archives myself because it's an honest account of where I was or what I thought about at different points in life. Of course, some opinions have evolved over time and I no longer agree with all my hot takes, but there are more than 1,000 posts that document my adventures and parenting, life philosophy and accomplishments, missteps and good and bad luck. I don't put a ton of pictures or links, because I'm not selling anything and clicks don't matter. In recent years, I've come to enjoy the challenge of writing text over telling a story with photos. I guess, even though I'm putting this out there publicly and with my name on it, this is really mostly for me. 

Last spring I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts. I loved Facebook. I found it to be a very useful tool for staying in touch with people. I liked to share what I was doing with other people and similar to this blog, I put out thousands of posts. In time, I came to understand that I was generating content for a machine that was serving up dangerous information to people I loved. They logged on to see my cute and adventurous kids and stayed for the propaganda. Most (all?) social media platforms that are free function in this way, farming content from willing users, generating revenue through holding the audience captive. Doesn't matter if the content is true or helpful, and things that induce anger are often the most profitable. 

My social media departure was the result of several factors. First, and most annoyingly, my Instagram account was compromised. Restoring it and keeping it secure became an ongoing challenge. I didn't post very much there, just viewed content about homeschooling and gardening, so that was an easier one to delete. Then my homeschool group opted to move off Facebook and onto the Mighty Network for organizing playdates and so forth. Mighty is a private social platform you pay for, so there are no ads. It's just the content from a specific group of users that you choose. So I didn't need to keep a Facebook account to see which playground we were meeting at. 

My Facebook exit was undramatic. I did not make any sort of announcement, although I did message a few people to get their phone numbers or email addresses. There's a safety measure that holds your deleted account for a few weeks before it asks you if you are really sure. I think most users probably change their minds, but I clicked "I'm sure" and that was that. 15 years of posts and photos gone. At first it just felt liberating. I could control how I viewed media to a larger degree. When I wanted to catch up with a friend I hadn't seen in a while we actually had news to share with each other. Occasionally I get an email from someone who wants to share an event or promote something, so I know that people who really want to find me, can. Mostly it just shifted the burden to actually go to events or hang out with friends in person if I wanted to stay connected with them. I sent more letters in the mail. 

Our family was in a big transition stage at that point. Our next door neighbors and close friends had also moved away when we moved from our house into the apartment. The apartment complex was largely inhabited by a generation of people who didn't even seem comfortable saying hello when passing in the stairwell. I basically had to get in the car and drive somewhere just to talk to someone outside of my immediate family! A very big change! I was used to calling out the kitchen window to ask the neighbor for some dishwasher soap or an egg if I ran out, and getting together for tea or beer on the porch most days. We've since moved to a new house, and are starting to meet neighbors. I imagine in another ten years I'll have new close friends here. Life is an ongoing cycle of relationships expanding and contracting.

One surprising thing was that I didn't miss the content very much, but I craved the act of scrolling, and even a year later it feels compelling in a weird way, especially when I'm tired or overwhelmed. I have a Substack account but found the endless scroll too enticing if the app was installed. Instead I opt to just read whatever I'm subscribed to as it lands in my email inbox. I support a few writers and it feels more like reading a magazine. Another observation is that I am experiencing the world a little bit differently. Like we're all at the same party but I'm the designated driver. I'm out of the loop on trends and hot takes, for sure. I never even had a Tiktok account, but Facebook was sort of a conduit for reels from many sources, and I was surprised at how much exposure I had to all platforms via just one. It's definitely made me think about how my kids are experiencing apps and smart phones and social media.

You know, with everything that's going on right now....

That's become a common catch phrase, sprinkled into conversations, accompanied by a hand gesture towards the sky. Obviously people are carrying on, because what else are you going to do? ICE has been very active in our region lately, and this week they came around to our co-op and had a brief encounter with a group of kids out on a walk with some teachers, including one of my kids. My kids are at little personal risk especially if they "comply with law enforcement" which is kind of a gross way of describing the act of doing nothing while you watch someone get snatched up by anonymous armed and masked men in unmarked rental vehicles and ferreted off to who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long. In this case, nobody was taken in front of them, although a young person at a bus stop a few blocks away was not so lucky. He was not the only one to be arrested that day in the neighborhood. Sometimes arrests make the news, and they might even publish a Go Fund Me. But these highlighted stories are a drop in the bucket compared to what neighborhood watch groups are documenting. 

It turns my stomach to think about all of it.

Sarah Menkedick wrote this essay and it's long and emotional, a beautifully written account of a terrible topic. The news cycle is bonkers and I know it's hard to find reliable sources or make sense of what is real and what is click bait. That's why it's important to look around your own city, to take a minute to listen to a woman you met at a playgroup, whose kid you shared a snack with one time. Real humans of the news cycle, if you will. Obviously there are calls to action we all must respond to, but I think the very first step is bearing witness, listening, acknowledging, and believing, even when it is painful to hear.

Home School High School

I did not expect to be homeschooling this long, and things do change a bit in the teenage years. But here we are and it's honestly working out fairly well. 

The first and biggest benefit is our ability to prioritize physical, mental and spiritual health. Tired people cannot regulate emotions very well and teens are even more susceptible as they go through puberty. When things are going off the rails, we revisit this and focus on it until it's regulated and then honestly, many problems clear themselves up quite easily. And if I'm ever in a panic about how all this is going, I can usually reorient myself with some sleep and healthy practices. Either it turns out I was worried about nothing, or the solution will come to me very easily, if a legitimate problem did in fact exist. 

The second benefit is flexibility. Due to this flexible nature of homeschooling in general, we were able to pivot and spend several months in Mexico City, while M worked in person with his team there. But it's not just geographic flexibility, it's also the idea that we can elevate some subjects when it makes sense (focusing on art made a ton of sense there since the scene is so vibrant and ever changing), and deprioritize things that are easy to come back to (like math). 

Our state requires that certain subjects be studied and provides guidelines for how many hours. We are filling out a transcript where Laurel puts together components of her self-directed learning that fit into these categories. One credit of Environmental Studies included an author study of Rachel Carson, notebooking prompts with a Harbor & Sprout guide on mycology and leading a class on foraging for peers at our co-op. Amazing, if you ask me! 

At some point, her evaluator and I can sign off on this and give her a home school diploma. However, as I am not an accredited institution, a high school diploma actually means very little on its own. So the more important thing is to discern short and long term goals, and design a course of study that walks you towards those things. And of course, to collect artifacts of growth and accomplishment, which will open doors along the way. 

DITL January Homeschool

Here's what Julie Bogart of Brave Writer calls a narrative sketch. The purpose is to jot down your activities one day a month or week in order to "catch" what actually happened, as opposed to what you planned. 

This month is weird because two of our five family members are not here! Laurel and M are in Mexico going to Spanish school and working in person, respectively. They are definitely still involved in the homeschool routine, though. For instance, Laurel and I met with my aunts and sisters on zoom this week for our monthly book club (the Narrative of Frederick Douglass) and M is crafting Python lessons for the kids and meeting them virtually when they need help. 

This week was weird because a massive snowstorm dumped a foot of snow on our city and 37 of 90 plows broke down during the storm, leaving a a big mess behind. We made a massive pile of snow when we cleared our driveway and all the little kids on the street came over and helped Max dig a huge tunnel through it, that will probably be there for quite a while. It turned bitterly cold so our regular activities have been canceled and we spent a lot of time indoors. 

Today we finally made it out of the neighborhood and went to my parents house to visit. They had my 4 year old nephew there and there was a lot of wrestling, pillow fights and fort building that went on. We had coffee and breakfast together and then the boys and I returned home. I went on a Zoom for "office hours" for a Brave Writer training I'm doing and we talked about reluctant writers and how to stay focused on writer's voice when the mechanics and handwriting are lagging (and cooperation). Marko started his virtual English Language Arts class with my friend, who is a secondary English teacher. Max worked on a little homophone book he is making. 

We all did some Duolingo to practice our Spanish. The boys both worked on a page of math from their Richard Fisher math workbooks. Max practiced some cursive. Marko wrote in his journal for photo class (he and M are taking a photo class on Discord that has lessons and assignments on taking better photos). Marko also worked on typing some descriptions in his slide deck of things he has done this year. We added some more notes to our February brainstorming/dumping of things we have going on next month. 

They are playing video games with their friends now. Later Marko will help Max with koans, and Max will meet virtually with M about it in the morning. Marko requested leeks in our grocery order and they finally arrived today so maybe he will make potato leek soup? We have a lot of chicken pot pie left so we may put that off until tomorrow. 

2025

I recently participated in a solstice reflection workshop facilitated by my long time friend, Steph. We met in kindergarten and somehow have stayed in touch across the decades and continents. It has been an absolute delight to read her essays and participate in her workshops. We have been meeting quarterly at the solstice and equinox since last year. It was really fun to see this come full circle. The other participants are from many countries around the world and it really feels good to connect in this way, like we are building a web of peace around this planet, one little tethered connection at a time.  

2025 was a hard year for me personally. And my problems seem trite compared to what some friends and family are facing. 

Last winter, one of Laurel's book club picks was the Diary of Anne Frank. This was a re-read for me, and I was surprised at how delightful her writing was, how normal of a teenage girl she seemed, and how one of the biggest challenges for her was boredom. After we read the book, we watched a mini-series called a Small Light, which tells the story of Miep and Jan Gies, who helped the Frank family while they were in hiding. Prior to viewing this I had a really difficult time understanding how people allowed the arrest, deportation and murder of their neighbors. Did they really not know??!! But this show did an excellent job of showing that resisting or aiding targeted people would put you in grave danger...but by doing nothing about it or looking the other way, you could live your life and remain safe from the threats. Children going to prison because of their ethnicity? That is so ridiculous it's hard to believe any politician is selling it. But it happened then, and it's happening now. It was also interesting to see how Miep and Jan - a married couple -  didn't even share details of their resistance work with each other...too dangerous for all involved. 

Still, good things happened. Joy. Connection. Curiosity.

We moved into a new neighborhood and the kids are delighted to have their own bedrooms, and a library and swimming pool and park they can walk to.

We took a trip to Canada to visit our former neighbors from Braddock Avenue. We went surfing for the first time, and spent a ton of time swimming and kayaking in the lakes, enjoying the quiet evenings, and eating fresh seafood.

We spent almost 4 months together in Mexico City, met so many amazing people and absolutely immersed ourselves in art, food and learning Spanish. Laurel and M are returning for one more month this winter, and I'm sure we'll all return again in the future.

M and I got out a bit more as adults, saw some cool shows, rediscovered some creative practices and we are both really enjoying language learning.

The biggest thing I learned in 2025 was to hold the space for enchantment and horror at the same time. Terrible things are happening, and we must do whatever we can to fight them. But it is a marathon, so you must pace yourself. Work enough, and then stop. Linger at the table. Be absolutely unbothered by traffic, by inconvenience. Be absolutely enchanted by the ripple across the lake at sunset, by a surfer catching a good wave, the way a child's face lights up when they first start to read. For many years poetry has been a salve for me, a touchstone for difficult times. 

Do all the good you can

By all the means you can

In all the ways you can

In all the places you can

At all the times you can

To all the people you can

As long as you ever can.

-John Wesley

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Living In an Enormous City

Mexico City is a very modern city...skyscrapers, an underground metro, wifi everywhere. But the process for residential recycling is this:

1) recycling truck stops in the middle of the street, blocking all traffic

2) a man gets out and rings a bell while walking up and down the street

3) neighbors carry out bundled cardboard and glass and so forth, or sometimes just bags of mixed recycling. 

4) the rest of the garbage men collect and sort the trash in the street and load it onto the truck

There are so many jobs here, or at least when you go to a business there are a lot of employees. Restaurants are staffed up. Stores have multiple people inside to offer assistance the second you walk in. Security guards stand at every door. Workers are employed by the city to sweep the park sidewalks every single morning. A man mops the stairs outside of our apartment every single morning. All five flights. On Monday mornings the whole city smells like Fabuloso. And if you aren't employed, you sell stuff.  I was sitting at a cafe with my Spanish tutor and was offered candy (typical), pumpkin laser pointers (not typical but it was Halloween), finger puppets, and tiny potted cactuses! There was a man selling some gorgeous MCM tables on the sidewalk. Two ladies open up a stand with second hand clothing every morning at the end of our block. It's really expensive here, so even people with college degrees and professional jobs, have side hustles. Maybe Uber, maybe running tours for tacos or Lucha Libre, or teaching Spanish, or teaching art to kids, or they're in a band. 

A lot of people wear uniforms to work. The nannies wear scrubs. The guy that opens the door in the apartment building wears a security uniform. The people that work in the pharmacies wear white coats. There are people that walk around with public health information and they have special vests on emblazoned with their political party (Morena! Currently in control so it's everywhere.) 

The background noise is constant. A solo trumpet player circling the block, a man shouting about fruit for sale from the back of a truck, the amplified recordings of the junk buyers looking for scrap metal, the horns honking when gridlock happens, the whistle of cyclists and police officers, someone singing while washing dishes. 

I do not worry about my kids being too loud, at all. 

Bots and Docs

I recently spent a few days playing around with a variety of AI bots to get help with analyzing my blood work and imaging from the last year. There's a lot of research and development going on with pharmaceutical treatments and cures for my condition. The FDA actually just approved a drug regimen that could halt the progress entirely, before it breaks my bones or trashes my kidneys. My condition involves frequent monitoring of a dozen or so blood markers, and it can be kind of dizzying to scroll through MyChart screens and try to figure out if the changes I'm looking at are noteworthy. Those little red exclamation points can be unnerving!! But they don't always indicate an emergency. I also have two other benign conditions that can impact how my disease markers could be interpreted. I have spent a lot of time trying to explain them, and they aren't always documented in a useful way.  ChatGBT ended up being very helpful. It generated easy to view charts of how my labs are changing, concise paragraphs I can paste into MyChart to alert each new doctor of my benign, but relevant, conditions, and a list of lifestyle and diet choices I should prioritize right now. 

In the United States it is imperative that you communicate relevant information to your doctor in the first 1-2 minutes of an appointment. I have learned a lot about asking for documentation, and the doctors themselves now use AI notetaking apps which actually really improve the quality of my records, and hopefully save them a lot of time charting! 

Risks include sharing all of this personal data with a profit driven corporation, of course. And the AIs got some things wrong. They corrected them when I pointed it out, but I wouldn't just load your results in and say what's wrong with me? The bots will tell you clearly that they are not doctors. However with targeted requests, it gave me exactly what I was looking for, saving a lot of time combing through research papers.

Another important factor about choosing when to start treatment and which treatment to choose is cost. The patient advocacy groups for my disease run monthly financial seminars and AI bots can really help to synthesize this information. (Healthcare for All! Someday, hopefully, but until then the reality is that finances do influence what you can access.)  Unfortunately the myeloma specialist in my city retired and has not been replaced. I could travel to another National Cancer Institute, wait for them to hire someone new here in Pittsburgh, or continue to receive care at the community hospital.

I've been really diligent about educating myself on my medical issues. For the first year, every doctor said it was IBS or perimenopause, a rheumatological issue or...the vast majority of time....stress. I knew there was something else going on. I can literally feel it in my bones! So, as much as it sucked to get a diagnosis, it was also sort of affirming. I think the only reason I have weathered the last five years and remain in relatively good overall health is that I am pretty devoted to all the recommended lifestyle choices that fend off chronic diseases. Eat fiber, chew a lot, sleep enough, move your body. Hydrate. Get some sun. Read poetry. Laugh with your kids. Hold your husband's hand and linger over coffee in bed every morning. Prescriptions for good living. 

So my verdict on AI is that it is a very useful tool for both doctors and patients,  but that the lack of regulation around it definitely means your data is not secure or private. Use it with caution.

DITL CDMX Version

I woke up as I do most days, with coffee in bed with M. Usually he makes it. We are back in the Nuevo Leon apartment, which I am very grateful for because it has a lot more space. However it has a lot more noise, as it is on a busy street and Mexico City is a very loud place. The first thing I heard today was the scrap truck and a lot of horns. 

Today was a special day because it was Laurel's birthday. We were able to find a Feliz Cumpleanos banner, and hung it up in the living room. The boys gave Laurel their birthday present, which was a set of very nice alcohol markers and some special paper. M and I gave her a new watch and a gift certificate to have her nails done. M packed his bags to run to work, and the kids and I had a slow start morning with school in pajamas and a breakfast made of what we could scrounge from the fridge. We had papaya, pineapple, toast and yogurt. Marko started off his school by watching some videos from Khan Academy and taking a unit test. He is working on Middle School physics right now. Max and I read a section of the Cricket magazine ( in English ) in which we read four news stories and had to decide which one was made up. Max is in fourth grade now, so a lot of his reading is done independently. I do try to listen to him read out loud several times a week to make sure that his fluency and reading comprehension are developing. We spent a lot of time reading these stories back and forth and then discussing what parts of them seem to believable. In the end we did not guess right though.

Laurel is working on writing a novel, as she does every November. Even though nanowrimo is no longer operational she continues this tradition. I think this is the fourth year she has produced somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 words in a month. We usually add this fiction writing component and take away math. (We call it No Math November, because aliteration makes every routine or ritual more beloved.) However Laurel has been really struggling to get through Algebra 1. It's gone on a few years now, and both of us have decided that she has to do a little bit of math every day to try to get this wrapped up by the end of the year. 

The kids are also focusing on learning to speak Spanish. We got a solid jump start on this study by enrolling any Spanish language school during the first 4 weeks of our trip here. Now we meet a tutor on Saturdays, and during the week they practice using Duolingo, the Ella verbs app, and listen to Spanish language YouTube and spotify. They write sentences telling about what they've done, and of course practice in situ around the city. This morning we went out on an errand to pick up cupcakes for Laurel's birthday, and on the way back saw a vendor with a basket on a bicycle. The kids knew that this was called tacos de canasta, because we watched a documentary about the different types of tacos. This type has a very distinctive blue plastic bag that lines the basket. Marko is eager to try any kind of new food on the street, so he took responsibility for that transaction. Everyone agreed that the tacos were tasty, and also they are extremely affordable. Three tacos for 24 pesos, which is about $1.25 US dollar. 

After the errand we returned home for some more school work, playing video games online with friends, eating some snacks, and waiting for M to get home from the office. Normally he comes home around 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening but today he came home early so we could go together to the Cat Cafe which was Laurel's special request for her birthday outing. This turned out to be a delightful and relaxing excursion, which also gave us the opportunity to practice some more Spanish. I complimented another customer on her cute cat themed glasses. And we chatted with the staff about the cats that were up for adoption. 

After the Cat Cafe, M took the kids to the park where there is both a playground and some workout equipment, and I came home to rest, because my energy reserves are very low these days. 

Unfortunately during this trip my blood work has been trending in a negative direction in terms of disease progression. (I was diagnosed with smoldering multiple myeloma earlier this year, which is a precursor stage of multiple myeloma. It requires no treatment, but frequent monitoring because you don't want to let the disease progress too far before beginning treatment.) My main symptom is fatigue, and it has been very tricky to handle this while we're in Mexico City and the kids don't have the independence to move around the city by themselves as they do in Pittsburgh. And there are so many cool things here that we are not doing, I feel guilty about staying home so much.

We have found a nice group of homeschoolers, and go to parkour classes, art classes, and museum outings several times a week, but there's nothing I can drop the kids off at.

Another notable event of the day, is that I saw my first fender bender traffic accident involving two cars. We have seen several moto and bicycle accidents where people skid out and fall down, but this was the first time I actually saw a car hit another car. This is notable after our years living on Braddock Avenue, where high speed crashes in which multiple vehicles were totaled happened with an alarming frequency. So despite the traffic being completely bonkers in this city, maybe people are better drivers here. Another thing I really like about the streets here, is that most of them are one way. So when you are walking around as a pedestrian you really only have to cross one direction of traffic at a time and then there will be a traffic island or something to stand on while you wait to cross the other side.

Overall we are having a pretty relaxing and unschooly time of it here. Generally I am pretty satisfied with what the kids choose to work on in a day, and as long as I find a private space to meet with each kid one on one I can provide the accountability piece that is really important, mostly for my comfort. There are seemingly unlimited opportunities to observe and participate in all kinds of culture here and we will probably be thinking about what we've learned during this trip for many years to come. 

I said that I wanted to come here to learn Spanish and to meet some Mexicans and have some real conversations about topics that matter to me...for instance education policy, art, poverty, literacy, Venezuela and other headline related issues, perceptions of the US, and what it's like to grow up in this country. I've been very lucky to meet some people who have enthusiastically shared their opinions with me, but it shows up in unexpected places, and it's honestly really hard and humbling to have these conversations in Spanish.

So my advice (to myself and to everyone) remains.... remember that you are on time for what the universe has in store for you. Take it slow and pay attention. You already know what to do.

The Sun Came Out!

The last few weeks have seen a lot of rain and overcast skies here. The rain situation across the whole country has actually been terrible this weekend, with widespread flooding in several states, destruction of towns and loss of life. Here in CDMX it seemed to mainly flood the Metro system and any sunken roadway, which makes traffic. (But everything makes traffic here.) The mood of people generally seemed to be a little more annoyed, a little quicker to honk horns in gridlock. I even saw two men get into a literal fistfight after a small collision between a car and a bicycle. This happened on our street after a box truck sheered off a massive limb of a tree, dropping it onto some power lines, dangling dangerously over Avenida Nuevo Leon. Eventually a fleet of bomberos arrived, but it was probably a good 30 minutes of rush hour traffic swerving around tree branches and electrical cables. It was an extraordinary enough event that many passersby stopped to look or take a photo. But there was also a steady wave of commuter cyclists pouring down the street nearly running directly into the power lines as it got dark, even after the police closed the road to traffic. Lots of horns honking and police blowing their whistles. This story would not surprise any Chilango. They say "Mexico, Magico" or sometimes the slightly more vulgar "Pinche Mexico, te amo." Basically, this place is crazy, but people love it, despite that or maybe because of that.

I had to navigate the medical system for the first time. One of the kids got sick, but we were able to get a doctor to come to the house, provide a thorough exam, and give me a list of medicine. I went across the street to one of three pharmacies on the street. There are much cheaper ways to do this, but even with name brand medicine and a house call from an English speaking doctor, the total cash price was still under $200 US. 

So rainy season is winding down, hopefully we will be back out doing fun things around the city in the coming weeks and all of our family members will be feeling better. 

One Month

It has been a month. El tiempo ha pasado rapidísimo. Walk Spanish language school was intense and at times exhausting. We arrived on a Sunday night and started Monday morning. Getting homeschool kids who generally enjoy a very relaxed schedule, up and to a cafe at a different location each day, in CDMX traffic, by 9 am was a challenge. However, it turned out to be an overwhelmingly positive experience. We loved our teachers, and the instruction was fun but challenging. They spoke to us in Spanish almost all the time, offering explanations in English as necessary. I have several years of Spanish study under my belt- I studied Spanish in high school, and worked in a bilingual school for two years. Oral fluency has long been challenging for me, but I can read and understand fairly well. The kids were basically coming in cold with a few weeks of Duolingo practice and exposure to whatever Lucha Libre matches M shared with them. This made their growth over a few weeks especially exciting. 

We finished school each day around 1 and for the most part began our journey back to the apartment straight away, often on foot. If the walk is less than an hour, you may as well just walk, to save yourself the trouble getting gridlocked in an Uber. Getting groceries, finding dry outdoor places for Max to run around in, figuring out what to do with trash and recycling...all of these little daily tasks take a lot of thought. Bathrooms are very common in sit down cafes and restaurants and are free. But in the parks you need some coins to get access. They are staffed by someone who will hand you a few squares of toilet paper. Not actually a bad system as the public restrooms remain clean and safe, but I found that I needed a lot more coins to account for four people using the bathroom when we go out. 

It is rainy season, the rainiest rainy season in the history of meteorology here. It is often sunny in the morning and will rain somewhere in the city at some point in the afternoon most days. Sometimes, though, the rain is widespread and heavy. Umbrellas are sometimes forbidden in the museums, as are backpacks. But you definitely want to carry a full arsenal of umbrellas and ponchos at all times, so bring extra pesos for the bag check. But don't leave anything valuable in that bag, so bring a secondary, small bag to bring your wallet and phone with you. If you do not bring a poncho it is guaranteed to rain on you. 

I designated a week to be a sort of rest week, to catch up on non-Spanish school work and clean the apartment and try to figure out some more meals to cook at home. We also connected with some of the homeschoolers/unschoolers here and are trying out some of the activities they do. Parkour was a big hit. 

CDMX First Impressions

We arrived in the evening, so the spread of lights across the valley stood out, ringed by mountains. The sun was setting through towering thunderheads, but our landing was pretty smooth despite the thunderstorms. Taxiing in to the gate, a message of welcome in English and Spanish and then, pouring off the plane with everyone else, a sea of people sorting themselves into lines. Mexicanos to one side. Extranjeros to the other. Wheeling our brand new suitcases out of baggage claim. Nothing to Declare.

That first car ride, as well as the evening stroll we took to stretch travel weary legs, did not convince me that we were in fact in a metropolis of 22 million. It was kind of quiet and peaceful on a Sunday night, dark and drizzly under the tree canopy. CDMX stretches across a valley, so you are cradled in the neighborhood. Thick walls block the noises. Disturbances even a few streets away are often inaudible. During the first week, we came across a noisy demonstration...there is always a strike or a protest....but walking a few blocks and turning a corner muted the sounds of chanting and drums to silence. Occasionally we find ourselves on a hill or on a high floor of a building with a view, and if it is a clear day, the city is a sea of rooftops, spreading out with no breaks, in all directions. 

People are friendly, everything is in Spanish. I am utterly lost when it comes to the self checkout stations in the grocery store (but the clerks are helpful). Anything that could be happening is happening somewhere in this city. The street food, public transportation and markets are cheap. Uber, cafes in Condessa and supermarkets are expensive but our dollars go a long way.

Spanish school starts this week.  I have no idea what to expect.

Living Water

We just spent a glorious 3 weeks on vacation together. It's been a while since M has been able to take time off when we are traveling. I think our 2022 bike trip was the last time he was really off from work for a continuous stretch. Our destination was the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, mainly because we have friends there and the provincial park was available and familiar territory as a place to stay. We really made no plans in advance, other than booking an unserviced camping spot. This meant that we had to carefully ration water and electricity as all water had to be hauled in (or as it were, OUT) of the camper and the electricity came from the sun. Mostly we swam in lakes and went to the beach, read books, played cards and built a puzzle. 

It was so quiet at night. Even though many people were staying at this campground, the sites are spread out and sort of separated from each other by dense shrubby forest, so you can't really see anyone else, and people are extremely respectful of quiet hours. We could hear loons and foxes at night. The porcupines in the park were huge! I've actually never seen a live porcupine outside of a zoo and it was funny to come across one waddling through the brush, eating grass and berries. There were a few foxes living near the park and many, many signs warning us not to feed the wildlife. The foxes were not very skittish, sometimes coming right up to your car, so I'm guessing some people have been feeding them. One of the foxes had a very unique coat compared to most red foxes I've seen....this one had brown and black and even some white mixed in with the red. 

One question that came up during the many hours of driving (1,200 miles aka 2,000 km each way!)  was "Why does it feel good to look far?" And you can look far in many directions, across a lake or out to the horizon from the beach. 

The coast in Nova Scotia breathes, drawing wind off the ocean at certain predictable times of the day. The tide in the Bay of Fundy is extreme, dropping 20 or more feet, exposing viscous red mud. When it refills the rivers, it rises as a visible wave moving upstream that people actually ride in small boats for fun. 

I've been swimming almost every day this whole summer, at home it was in a pool, but in Nova Scotia it was what you call wild swimming. Lakes and oceans. The lake we camped at is connected to the ocean, so has a little salinity. This keeps the leeches down, but there are some eels living in it. Now that all my children are pretty competent swimmers, lake swimming is much more fun and relaxing. Our friends have a floating dock in their part of the lake, so you can swim out to it and dive off. One day we all went to the beach and took a surfing lesson, which I was, frankly, terrified to try, but it turned out to be very fun, and felt much less dangerous than I expected. This was partially due to some favorable wave conditions on the day I went. M and Laurel and Marko went back a few days later and the surf was much more challenging. 

Since we didn't have water hookups in our trailer and there were only two showers for the whole campground, I was glad to be in the water so much. We had some debates about whether a lake swim counts as bathing. Certainly ocean swimming and surfing in a rented wetsuit calls for some scrubbing, at least to get the sand out. We noticed that there was a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo sitting near the dock where our friends live, so clearly some consider the lake to be an adequate bathing setting. 

One thing we didn't do was have a campfire. Ironically despite being surrounded by water, the conditions are extremely dry and the fire bans were in full effect, even closing the forest trails to all recreational traffic with a $25,000 fine. Hopefully they will get some rain soon.

While Canadians were universally polite and respectful to us, the news coverage and topics of conversation were often centered around the Trump administration's policies. For the first time I saw widespread pro-Canada flags and signs, and while there was nothing anti-American per se, there was lots of talk of admonishing Americans to do something, as well as a general sense of betrayal.

Beginning Again

I spent most of the summer unpacking and setting up our new house and working on recovering my fitness and strength. The kids have been hanging out with friends, going to the pool a lot, and reading. M has been traveling a ton, working, and running. Max went to an ultimate frisbee camp with his friend and loved it so much. Laurel went to two weeks of CIT camp with the Girl Scouts and also loved it. Marko did not go to a camp but spent a lot of time with his friends and exploring our neighborhood on foot. Many things are going very well for us. 

It's time to launch the new school year! As always, this is a soft start for us, and begins with talking about goals (and yes I count this work as 'school'). I ask the kids what they want to be able to do or know next year at this time, and then we spend a fair amount of time teasing out what it would look like. This year each kid is making a list of books they want to read. We will go Brave Writer style with one book a month, and assign chapters to encourage slow and close reading. I'm hoping to organize book clubs with family and friends for most of the months, to occur virtually as well as in person. There is also a lot of interest in economics so I ordered Kyla Scanlon's book In This Economy, and we will read that together along with her Substack. CrashCourse and Khan academy will also probably occupy a fair amount of our 'school' days. The most exciting thing is that we will be going to Mexico, where we will focus on learning conversational Spanish and Latin American history. Laurel will be using the Help for High School essay writing book from Julie Bogart, and I ordered a book of essays for us to read, Breakfast on Mars and 37 Other Delectable Essays. We are also getting more involved in the Outdoor Serve Guides scouting, which is a great framework for mastering all sorts of practical and civic skills. 

I read two books this summer that had a big impact on me. The first one was Stolen Focus by Johan Hari, which gets into the systemic reasons we all seem to be struggling with attention span these days. The second one was the Five Resets by Aditi Nerukar, which was a basic self-help sort of book, not particularly revelatory, but extremely well organized, at least to my brain. I paged through it in one sitting at the library, then took it home and took notes. I'm just hungry for a little direction right now, I guess. Anyway, I've noticed my attention slipping the last few years. Many of my peers complain about this as well, but  often attribute it to perimenopause or middle age or stress. Many people talk about their kids struggling with attention. My own kids complain about it. We try to exercise and take magnesium supplements or avoid sugar or meditate. But I wondered if it could be the rewiring of my brain in response to notifications on my phone. I deleted Facebook and Instagram, turned off all app notifications, set my phone to dim/sleep mode between 7pm and 7am and blocked Reddit. Now I'm trying out monotasking. I stopped listening to podcasts or audiobooks while I cook or clean. I stopped reading while I eat. And this is going to sound kind of weird, but I stopped thinking while I walk, especially if I was taking a walk because I felt stressed or angry. Instead I started saying a mantra, Yes, yes, thank you, thank you. It astonished me how quickly this simple phrase made me feel better, how disruptive a mantra is to anger or hurt. It's Buddhism 101. But I can feel my attention shifting, my memory improving. Exercising personal control is not the solution exactly. Tech companies, like all corporations, need to be held more accountable for the impact they have on people's health and well being. Lots of money can be made while still putting people first. But personal self control is a lever we can pull right now to reclaim a small part of our brains that have been altered by our environment. 

So I guess I'm also going to bring some mindfulness into homeschooling. Slow things down and lean into deep mastery. Provide lots of opportunities for rest or quiet minds in between work to allow things to simmer and gel. Get off the FOMO train and stop worrying that we're going to fall behind those who say they are doing more. I'm all in on accountability and helping us discern when we truly understand something or know how to do something. Assessment is key for this. But we will have to work on our attention to make this a reality.

Another homeschool year in the books!

I have submitted papers, dotted the i's and crossed the t's for another homeschool year, although I guess technically I homeschooled two and a half kids, instead of three. Max enrolled in a cyber school halfway through the year, and it ended up being a very good experience for all of us. You aren't really totally off the hook as a parent with cyber school, because the kid is still in your house and under your care all day. But it did relieve me of most instructional duties and all curricular decisions.

Laurel and Marko did their usual portfolio routine, where we basically stop school in April and spend a month or more gathering work, reflecting, revisiting unfinished projects...often finishing them with less angst (which is sort of a trick of mine, because they feel like school is over, but I know this part is really integral to their education). This year was complicated somewhat by moving into a new house right in the middle of it, which we did slowly over a month and a half, with very little rhyme or reason other than setting up beds and the kitchen in the new house first. This seemed like a brilliant first step, but actually resulted in us losing interest in the rest of our possessions, because it felt like we had everything we needed. For everything else, we packed a few boxes and threw them in our car every time we were in that end of town. The boxes were pure chaos by the end. Nonetheless, it got done, and hopefully this is the last move for a good, long while. 

Despite the moving chaos, our evaluations with the Dandelion Project were delightful, reflective and rejuvenating. Rock climbing team finished up this week, PALS co-op is done until September, and Laurel is pausing her horse and voice lessons for most of the summer. The older kids are figuring out public transportation from here, and we have discovered our new neighborhood has a public library, weekly farmers' market, extensive woodsy trail system and a public swimming pool. Plus a basketball court which is a block away (far enough that you can't hear the sound of the basketball, but close enough that the kids actually go there all the time and meet up with neighborhood kids and play together). 

I am really excited to be setting up space in our house, we have more rooms than ever. Every kid has their own bedroom, and we have two extra rooms in the basement. Lots of space for projects and hanging out. In many ways, things are going very well for us. 

In less pleasant news, I have been pretty sick this entire year, and have landed in a frustrating liminal space between learning what is wrong and being across the threshold where you treat it. Watch and wait, is what the doctors call it, and it's an actual treatment plan for my diagnosis of smoldering multiple myeloma. Blood tests every 12 weeks, look for trends. The good news is that it may not progress very quickly or at all. The bad news is that it's anyone's guess if you are in that no-worries category or if you have the kind that gnaws your bones to shreds and breaks your kidneys before anything shows up in your bloodwork. I would very much like to avoid the horror of pathologic fractures, thank you very much. In the meantime, I at least got an iron infusion, which did seem to lift the fatigue somewhat, as I had some significant iron deficiency alongside the plasma cell stuff. And yes, I'm getting a second opinion, and forcing myself to go on daily walks and eating lots of anti-inflammatory foods. It seems that if I make it through 2-5 years of no disease progression, I don't have to worry about it too much. I'm honestly pretty cranky about the whole thing, but what can you do, life is strikes and gutters. 

On the schedule for this summer, hopefully a return trip to Nova Scotia to visit friends, Laurel is going to 2 weeks of CIT camp, Max is doing an ultimate frisbee daycamp, Mark is running a race in West Virginia and Marko is playing lots of basketball. I hope to be at the pool a lot, and work in the garden. 

A Deep Dive Into the Sea

Middle School is a delightful time to homeschool. The tweens and young teens in our circle are still very playful and active in the woods and at the playground. They love board games, video games, role playing games, and icebreaker games. They are learning how to cook and take care of younger children and are reasonably trustworthy to go off on their own. 

My middle schooler (currently in the sixth-ish grade) is very independent and ready to stretch his wings. I can trust him to take the bus and arrive at his intended destination. If something goes awry, he is comfortable admitting mistakes and asking others for help. I can send him to the grocery store or other little errands. He works hard at the climbing gym, helps to babysit his cousin every week, and loves going on playdates and sleepovers.

As for studies, middle school, in my opinion, should be all about solidifying your basic math skills, developing literacy and critical thinking skills, starting to write more, and exploring all the different ways there are to learn. This exploration is really fun if you can find an interest to deep dive into. For us, it's been marine biology. I can't remember when this interest began to take hold, but we went on a whale watching tour this summer and that's definitely when he started asking to do more things. We also listened to some of Rachel Carson's books, which contain amazing lyrical descriptions of sea life (highly recommend!) and are very soothing for falling to sleep.  For now he is working on a Harbor and Sprout interdisciplinary unit called Oceanography, a marine biology Coursera, an Outschool class that features two sea creatures a week in a live zoom lecture, and an online watercolor class where he is going to learn to paint realistic pictures of whales. He attended a Smithsonian homeschool lecture on marine life (a scientist was showing how they collect samples of coral to study it) and has checked out a lot of encyclopedia-type books from the library. We watch a lot of nature documentaries. There are frequently relevant articles in the National Geographic magazine subscription we receive. Recently there was a lab in his sister's high school biology course that had to do with population fluctuation. Having a partner made sense for this lab, so he stepped up to join her. There was a card game that modeled population changes, questions to answer in writing and a final project in which they designed a presentation for the imaginary city council of a coastal town. We have been to the zoo and the museum, where exhibits expand on his knowledge of the topic in new and interesting ways.

I don't know if he will actually become a marine biologist, or if this interest will fade in time. But for now, it's an excellent hook. Whereas in elementary I would have been satisfied to watch, read, visit museums, and play, the middle school level is a time to try out different ways of learning and to practice demonstrating what you have learned and what you can do. He now knows that he definitely prefers the kind of class where there is a live lecture from a knowledgeable expert. He has also learned that he can make it through a Coursera or Khan Academy course, but that he probably needs to develop some new study or test taking skills to pass the tests. 

Here are a few potential things to do next...

-Read Playground by Richard Powers and discuss with mom and dad

-Investigate summer camp options, like Sea Camp in Galveston that my cousin recommended

-Go whale watching again! We're hoping to visit Nova Scotia again and there are lots of opportunities for marine life viewing there

-Read some poems or classic literature about the sea

2024

The past few years have been a bit of a roller coaster with big noteworthy events happening, lots of changes, and making do with less than ideal circumstances. But 2024 was kind of hard in a really boring way. I have no terrible tales to tell, just the usual age and relationship related trials that come around in life every so often. Thankfully we also had many good things and scrolling through my photos helped me to really put that in perspective. In 2025 I would like to write more descriptively as things occur, but for now I'm going to be satisfied with capturing a few bullet points. 

• Lots of service projects and camping trips with the Girl Scouts
• Homeschool meet ups, French class at the library with the senior citizens, lots of Outschool classes
• Lunch with my parents and nephew, walks and poetry with my sister
• Pizza and game nights with so many lovely friends and family members 
• A snowy trip to West Virginia to a cabin with a hot tub
• Horses and barn cats and farm dogs, and some more show ribbons for Laurel
• A reunion lunch with our dear former neighbor, Marlene
• Solo trips for me....Oakland CA to visit my friend (and now fellow homeschooling parent!), backpacking the North Country Trail, and a weekend away in Cincinatti where I got to meet Julie Bogart, author of a number of excellent books on home education and the one who planted the seed for our beloved poetry tea times
• Loads of bike rides around town, sizing up bikes so Max has actual gears and comparable tire size to the rest of us, lol
• M too a trip to New York City for work, stayed extra to see museums and fell in love with stand up comedy
• Learning to forge steel at Carrie Furnace for M and I
• Laurel earning her Silver Award 
• Trail running fun with friends, many races, adventure courses and mountains
• Meeting up with friends in the Poconos
• An epic trip to Nova Scotia and reunion with our next door neighbors and best friends
• Loads of swimming, learning to dive (including a heart stopping plunge off the 10m high dive for Marko)
• Loads of rock climbing for the whole family and Max's first competition
• Hosting friends for a week and showing them all of our playgrounds and libraries
• Marko was in a play and a piano recital
• So many board games, video games, games of tag and movie nights
• Cat cuddles and coffee watching the sun come up on the river every single day

Oh Canada - PA to Digby

We finished out a great four weeks, spent mostly in Canada. We spent the first few days visiting with friends in the Poconos. They live in California but have family in Philadelphia so eastern Pennsylvania is often a place we meet up. Those first few days were HOT. Luckily, we have air conditioning in our trailer and we had booked a site with 30 amp hookups. There was a pool at the campground, along with a lot of other kid-friendly attractions. While Leah is one of my best friends, our kids aren't very close and it always feels like a bit of a gamble to see how they'll get along. But of course, they found plenty of fun things to do together, and we ended that portion of our trip with our traditional 2-4-6-8 group cheer and a reflection of our favorite things. Common answers were smores and star gazing. The downside of this location was that it was freaking expensive! Later I learned that there was a NASCAR event in the area, which drove up the prices. Also the bug bites were epic. 

After that we headed up through New England, stopping at two Harvest Host sites. Neither had hook ups, but luckily evening storms cooled things off a little bit, and we spent most of each day driving with AC on. The first Harvest Host was in the driveway of a homeschooling family! The second was in a church parking lot and had a beautiful view of a field of wildflowers. Both were very quiet all night. 

The next day we stopped at a Walmart in Bangor to pick up some supplies and were soon at the border between Maine and Canada. Our vehicle was flagged for a search and we sat at the border for a good hour. Once we got going again we realized we were entering a new time zone and had lost yet another hour. The temperature also started dropping, and fog rolled in from the Bay of Fundy. We were very close to the water, but couldn't see a thing. That night we pulled into a county park that had a campground in Saint John, New Brunswick. We spent the afternoon hiking around the park (the trail system was extensive) and taking hot showers (as it had been three days since we had hookups). 

The next day we didn't have to be at the ferry dock until the afternoon so M went out to run and the kids and I took a hike. Rockwood Park is really a hidden gem and worth a stop. The campground wasn't much more than a gravel lot, but the park itself had several picturesque lakes, an arboretum with lots of signage, swimming beaches and an activity center with fusball and board games. The extensive system of mountain biking/hiking trails is really the park's best asset. It is right in the city of Saint John and just a 10 minute drive to ferry. On the way to the ferry we stopped to the see the Reversing Falls, one of many rivers along the Bay of Fundy that flows backwards with the tides. We loved watching the ducks play in the rapids, and were delighted spot some harbor seals swimming. 

The ferry was a lot of fun. It's very orderly, as are many things in Canada. You check in and they measure your length, and then put you in a lane. When the ferry pulls up, you get to watch all the cars and people unload and then you drive on, lane by lane. The crew is very polite but make sure you get as close as possible to the vehicle in front of you. We transferred our intrepid travel cats into the trailer with some food and water, and went upstairs to the passenger area. Two movie theaters, several snack bar/restaurant areas, and a lot of seating both inside and outside made the two hour trip fly by. We got some snacks and drinks, but spent most of the time sitting gone the deck looking at the bay. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we were enjoying not being hot and sweaty, as we had been on most of the trip. 

When we pulled off the ferry, we were in Digby, Nova Scotia. We camped at the most adorable little campground that had a communal fire pit, full hookups and a coin laundry. The weather was sunny and breezy, but not too hot. The campground was right on a bike path so we could walk into town for dinner. We had lobster, scallops and fish and chips at a restaurant with a view of the water. We were getting used to reading the temperature in Celsius and following the speed limit to the kilometer and keeping track of our loonies for the laundry. There were still quite a few other Americans around and it wasn't too different yet. The biggest change since we had entered Maine was the water. There's water everywhere, rivers and lakes and inlets from the oceans. Every time we crested a hill or came around a corner there was more or different water in front of us. 

The next morning we woke up very early to head to our whale watching tour. If whale watching itself were not exciting enough, we also had plans to meet up with our former next door neighbors, who moved to Canada about the time we moved out of our house. They had never done whale watching either, so we booked tickets on the same cruise. 

That is a tale for another day.

Begin Again

As July kicks off, I am drafting objectives and preparing the required paperwork to declare my intent to homeschool our kids for another year. It's surprisingly emotional for me. Laurel considered a lot of different brick and mortar and online options and is opting to chart her own DIY path through high school. I have every confidence in her ability to create a rich and fulfilling secondary experience for herself. But still, this is starting to feel like a real commitment. (I don't recall signing up to homeschool f o r e v e r.) Last year I made daily requirements...do something from Brave Writer, some math practice, some physical movement, and read and respond to some nonfiction for Social Studies/Science. However, we didn't set aside any time during the day that was for "school," and we tracked our progress more by progression towards goals than butts-in-seats, which is how the state has you do it.  We didn't even really call it school. (Learning is Life, Life is Learning, trying out that unschool-y vibe.)

This year, I'm going to make some more clear divisions around school/work time. In the past, it has been easier to do the same thing with all three kids, merrily moving through our day listening to podcasts and visiting museums, turning on a documentary when we had a question or looking for books at the library. The lines between "school" and "life" were basically nonexistent. This is definitely a great model for kids up to 11 or so, and I think I'd like to preserve this vibe for Max for the next few years. But the older two are getting into projects and pursuits that require a lot more concentrated effort, use of the computer, or time to read and write independently. Plus it was hard to know when it was time to rest if we didn't know when we were at work. We are about to head out on a month long road trip to visit the Maritimes but when we get back, I will schedule out some hours each day

Even if we have a structured schedule, I will remain highly committed to our learner-led vibes. The kids (and M and I!) exercise our freedom to pursue what strikes our fancy, whenever possible. I love our routine of choosing a few big things to work on at the beginning of our year in July, and then revisiting those intentions each month when we plan out what skills we will focus on learning, field trips, classes, documentaries, books, etc. that we will focus on for the month. It is never lost on me what a joy learning is in our household.

So, we begin again, picking up new things to try on and see if they fit, discarding what we are done with. I can't wait to see how this school year unfolds. 

Five Years

Wow, we just finished our fifth year of homeschooling! To celebrate I baked a cake. In the past, we have had Cake for Breakfast on the last day of school, made even more celebratory by inviting neighbors to share it with us on our porch, but mornings are often pretty slow around here, so this was more of a Cake for Lunch situation. Also, after living in our apartment for over a year, we have yet to even know the names of our direct neighbors. I baked a lemon bundt cake that had three whole lemons in it, loads of butter, and a sweet glaze that soaked in and made the cake even better the next day. We met with some new evaluators this year and both of them really set the tone of celebrating the learning for the year.

One question that came up frequently this year was "Does this count?" meaning, can we log it for the 180 day requirement as outlined in the Pennsylvania law. And what does count? In our house, the kids take an active role in deciding what they want to learn and how, and logging it and reflecting upon it. This cycle of setting intentions, working on projects, and then stopping to review progress around the 3rd week of the month has become an important and enjoyable process for us. Sometimes we get to that review time and actually haven't made it very far on a goal or intention. That's when we can decide if we actually just need more time, or more resources, or perhaps some kind of direct instruction or class or space in order to move forward. Maybe we have everything we need and just haven't gotten motivated enough to take action. Maybe we did take action but it's all going to take a LOT longer than we expected and we need more time. Or maybe it's not that important anymore and we just want to drop it. 

In any case, from watching my kids tell the story of their year to the evaluators, it was clear to me that much progress has been made, many lessons learned, new interests have been sparked and I'm ready to tackle year 6 of homeschooling with enthusiasm.

Some of our favorite things this year included:

• Pizza and game night, frequently with guests
• Outings to the local brew-pub, who have some jazz bands that play regularly
• Bike rides on the Great Allegheny Passage, reading all the historic marker signs, exploring Carrie Furnace
• Horse riding lessons, which has also included watching the farrier, assisting with the hay-baling process, feeding and grooming horses, and exploring the trails and plants on the 90+ acres of the farm
• Lots of co-op classes with interesting titles, meetups with friends at parks, and the launch of a self-directed co-op learning space that is slowing coming together
• Monthly zoom meetings with aunts and nieces to discuss books from Laurel's curriculum
• Piano lessons (including first recital for Marko), guitar and ukulele jamming, and experimentation with the trumpet (so loud!)
• A trip to southern Ohio to go to the Paw Paw festival, visit the caves at Hocking Hills State Park and see the newly designated Hopewell Earthworks UNESCO site
• Weekly outings with my 2 year old nephew to parks and libraries and lunch with my parents

2023

Year 5 of homeschool is well underway as we wrap up another calendar year! I am grateful that everyone is healthy and doing well. 

2023 was pretty crazy for us. The biggest thing was moving out and selling the house we had lived in for 14 years. Our neighbors on each side also moved. It was absolutely the right decision for us, and thanks to our amazing realtor, the sale itself went pretty smoothly. However, the way things all went down was pretty sudden and unpleasant. Thankfully we have some good activities and community to keep things feeling normal even when everything felt topsy-turvy. We rented an apartment to stay in until we find another house, but to be honest, everyone is pretty happy here and we aren't in a rush. We aren't too far from our old neighborhood, so other than not being able to walk into the park or cemetery anymore, we are a quick drive from most of our activities. We can see the river from from every window and the local library branch has amazing staff and programming. 

We went on a really nice trip to the Paw Paw festival in Ohio this fall. All my kids can officially swim and the pool is much more fun now. The kids are on the team at the climbing gym, Laurel participated in her first horse show this year, Marko started piano lessons and had his first recital (playing Jingle Bells) and Max recently celebrated his birthday with his first big friend party at a trampoline park. M finally got his third piece of pie from the Baker Ultra - they run the 150 mile trail in 50 mile sections each year and for many reasons, he had missed the third section multiple times. I am deeply immersed in the unpaid and not-very-prestigious work of a middle aged mother/daughter/sister/friend who homeschools. I give rides and babysit, refill Little Free Libraries, make snacks, explain algebra and sing nursery rhymes, read, collect poetry, and listen. After navigating a series of crises over the past few years, I'm grateful for the low-stakes flow of daily life now. I imagine I will get bored of this soon, but for now, working in my kitchen while watching the river flow is pretty amazing.