Today I am blogging at Ohio Moms Blog

Relating all of our adolescent antics and high school foolery in and around the Cleveland area made me a little sad that my kids were not going to experience some of these same stomping grounds. I love when our neighbors here in Clintonville tell tales of when they were kids; the local schools they attended; Whetstone, Watterson, IC. Or when they recreate our street into farmland and our house into “The Doctors” house.

We haven’t been too crafty around here-well Ginger and I haven’t been. Molly on the other hand decided to make a hat on Sunday so she sat down with a measuring tape and paper and pencil and started measuring her head in all different ways and then doubling some numbers and dividing some and even quadrupling some. Asking me what I thought and honestly I had no idea. It really didn’t make too much sense to me but she is touched in that creative,       “I can see things in 3D”, sort of way so I knew she didn’t really need help, just needed to say it all out loud. She was making the hat with several panels, hence all the math.  She used tissue paper to make sort of a pattern and then a quick trip to the fabric store with her money and coupon in hand. She remembered Lina had a hat shaped like the one she wanted to make and thought it might be a good idea to look at hers. That hat was made a little differently than she had patterned. About 30 minutes later she came upstairs wearing this!!! Complete with her first time using the  zig zag stitch for the  eyes. Well done!

As someone that barely sews-Can you tell how impressed I am????

And it fits perfectly! All that real math. She did not use a typical equation or traditional route to get her answers but obviously by the fit, her answers were correct. It’s moments like this that re-enforce my unschooling choices!

I have been spending lots of time reading unschoolers blogs and really wanting to learn more about unschooling. Although we have been unschoolers for a while I am feeling the need to learn more and the need for more support lately. Not because I doubt it but more because I want to embrace unschooling more fully. I feel as though I may have been just talking the talk so to speak. Like giving my kids freedom to make choices with their time, money etc… and then inserting my opinion or worse taking back the control. I am feeling the need for an unschooling boost. So I have been reading Swiss Army Wife,    An Unschooling Life,   Kelly Hogaboom,   The Expanding Life,  The Organic Sister,   Childs Play,  Radical Unschooling,    Joyfully Rejoicing, Organic Learning. Whew! That is a lot of reading!!

But I am so interested in learning all I can about unschooling. I have even been listening to a few podcasts.  So between reading, writing, listening to and discussing unschooling, I have really immersed my self in learning all I can about it. I seem to do that often.  For awhile I will eat, sleep and breath recipes and cooking or raw food or photography or running. I seem to devote all my time to my current passions and then when I feel I have mastered the subject or exhausted all there is to know about soup, or I lose interest and find something else to investigate, I move on.  Often times I come back to the things that interest me although sometimes not.  Sometimes I have learned all I need to on say, how to make my own laundry soap but not really interested in the chemical make up of it. Leave that to the scientists, the people that are interested.

I see my kids acting quite the same way. They fill their time getting their questions answered or their activity, level, or project mastered whether that takes an hour or several days.   Once their needs are met they feel satisfied to move on.  They are setting internal goals and following their own timetable. How appropriate! And how real.  As Molly demonstrated it often involves math and reading or science and history and all those school subjects that seem to continually creep back into our lives as a measure of competency.   Can’t it just be what it is. Can’t it just be Wow-Molly made a great hat without all the educational baggage that comes with it.( For Molly it was this way-she didn’t know she was “doing math” she was just figuring out how to make the hat fit her head.)

I say educational for lack of a better term, school curriculum? I am constantly learning and educating myself as is everyone else in the world every second of every day-yet it often goes unnoticed when it occurs outside of formal school. The term “self taught”  usually comes with a wow factor or a a sense  of  “can you believe he/she learned that on their own?”   Really??? We are all self taught when it comes down to it. Even those who went to school for umpteen years-you didn’t learn everything in school. Some stuff we learned on our own, by following directions, looking on the internet, watching other people and by doing it ourselves.  It is those that earn that self taught label that followed their passions far enough to be accomplished publicly or are making a living at something they loved enough to practice and perfect.

The way that I am pursuing my interests isn’t any different from the way my kids are living their lives-yet no one is looking at me funny. Giving my kids the freedom to learn all the time in their own way, whether it be all crazy, and mixed up front to back or back to front or for two weeks or two minutes is huge. Imagine the possibilities. Imagine if you could spend your time learning  what ever you wanted. In the way that best suits you-reading up on the subject, joining a group, watching movies about it, talking to others that have knowledge on the subject. Really immersing yourself in that topic. Well our kids are doing that every day. And not just in one area because as so often times it  happens that one thing leads to another. So many things are related to another and learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in life. And in real life math is not separated from english from science from history. Only in school.

I have thought about making my own laundry soap for quite some time but thought it might be hard,  not really work as well as store bought detergent or in the long run, not really save me any money. Boy, was I wrong!!

I scoured the internet and books looking for a recipe. This is the recipe I decided to try. Only then I did a bit more digging because I am overly thorough sometimes, (my friends and family may even say anal!!) And found that Fels Naptha soap isn’t very natural.  So I decided to just use Dr. Bonners bars of castille soap. I have been using Dr. Bonners for so many things for so many years.  They smell great, are super concentrate, they get the job done and the bottles of the liquid soaps provide for some great reading material!!

I used my food processor to grind up the soap. Next time I will follow the suggestions to follow the shredding blade with the metal blade along with some of the washing soda to pulverize and “powderize” the soap.

You will also need a bucket to keep your soap in. Preferably one with a lid. I found my blueberry bucket to be just perfect.

The  ingredients are simple and all were found at my local Meijer store:

1 bar dr. bonners soap (your choice of flavor!) I made a double recipe and used 1 lavender bar and one citrus orange

1 cup washing soda

1cup Borax

1/4 cup Eco-store pure oxygen whitener or oxyclean

I then copied the recipe on to the lid so I would never have to go searching for it again when it is time to make a batch!

Note you only need 1 Tablespoon for a regular load and 2 Tablespoons for a heavy load!! So little goes a long way! I do start my wash cycle with hot water to get the soap dissolved and then switch back to cold.

The scent is so fresh! It reminds of summer time and line dried clean clothes! Ahhhhhhhhh!

Really this is easy, cheap and works just as well as store bought laundry products.

Tomorrow I’ll have a little something natural for your dryer!!

Alert–if you are looking for a healthy or raw recipe-look somewhere else this week!

If you are looking for a special occasion cake or need something impressive( or just want to go into a diabetic coma)…look no further!!

I recently found out about Apartment Therapy. What??? How did I not know about this site??!! It is awesome and could keep me glued to  my computer screen ALL day! What else is out there you are not telling me about???

Anyways, it was while going through each and every back post of Apartment Therapy that  I found this Epic Rainbow Cake. As soon as I saw it I knew we had to attempt it! So I borrowed 6 cake pans from my Mom and my neighbor Abby

and set to work.  I followed Whisk Kid’s cake recipe but could have bought boxed cake-it’s not like we were baking for health here! Note-these cakes are very thin so don’t be intimidated by a 4 foot high cake-it wasn’t that big. My family likened the taste of the cake to sugar cookies, which was really good I might add.  It was really 1 or 2 cake batter recipes divided between six pans.

The cake recipe I used is as follows

2 sticks butter, room temp
2 1/3 c sugar
5 egg whites, room temp
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 c flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 1/2 c milk, warmed for 30 sec in microwave to bring to room temp
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple food coloring

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Oil and line how ever many 9” cake pans you have.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter, then add the egg whites (I cracked them all into one bowl) and add them a little at a time. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Then, alternating between wet and dry, add the milk and flour mixture in two parts.

Divide the batter amongst 6 bowls—I used a large soup ladle, It was about 2 and a half scoops per bowl. Then add the food coloring and mix WELL.

Pour into cake pans and bake 15 minutes-or more or less according to your oven.

I tripled a buttercream frosting recipe. It made a ton of frosting but we ended up using every bit of it. This cake was super sweet and ends up being like a slab on a plate because it is so heavy with frosting. You could cut down on the amount of frosting if you choose-it is super sweet. Also-I might add this cake tastes better chilled.

This recipe frosts two 9 inch cakes–I tripled–my mixer was full of frosting(I was in heaven)!

1/2 cup of butter

3 1/2 cups powder sugar

4 to 5 Tablespoons of liquid—milk, creamer, water   I used Snowville Creamery 1/2 and 1/2

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Molly did a bit of decorating

And we all did some eating!!!

Note-my cake looks much less professional than Whisk Kids-but sure did taste good!!!

Did you know that 2009 is The International Year Of Astronomy? Well it is!!

In honor of that, the IYA is offering these high quality, low cost telescope kits. One of our local homeschool groups ordered a bulk quantity of these at a  lower shipping rate that we were able to take advantage of.

We finally put ours together the other night…(in anticipation of some great star gazing on our trip to a remote island in a few weeks-more on that later!).

My husband showing Jake which direction to assemble one of the many pieces!

The kit comes with three different magnifications. And don’t be surprised when you look through your eye piece and everything is upside down! The FAQ tab explains the reason why!

I would love to say that we went out side and saw the rings of Saturn with these babies…but no. It has been cloudy for days here in Central Ohio,  so my kids have been using them to see what our neighbors are having for dinner.  But they seem to be working really well!

Jake used the kit directions while we used the following “on-line” directions.
https://www.galileoscope.org/gs/sites/galileoscope.org.gs/files/Galileoscope-Instructions-20090710rtf.pdf

http://unawe.org/joomla/images/materials/instruments/galileoscope.pdf This one is just pictures, but good ones!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1iByPaAG0U This is from You Tube

I felt so much better after hearing on the You Tube video that the model Galileoscope has been assembled and disassembled over 250 times and dropped several times and yet it still works! That means, destructo Ginger’s telescope may actually still be working by the time we go on our trip! She literally dropped and banged the thing 20 times during assembly!

I have been wanting to get a tattoo for a long time. I researched it,( cause I’m like that), I looked at books, on-line, and polled friends with tattoos. I looked up every tattoo shop in the area and looked through many tattoo artists portfolios. I finally found both an idea for my tattoo and an artist whose style I really liked. Her work reminded me of Sunny Buick, whose work I love!

I brought my rough idea into Thrill Vulture Tattoo and Naomi worked on a drawing and finally came up with the perfect tattoo for me! So yesterday was finally the big day. I was a little sick to my stomach but had no second thoughts. I was more worried about the pain.Mostly because I didn’t know what to expect.

But once Naomi got started it really didn’t hurt much at all.

Especially once the outline was finished! There were a few tender spots near my wrist, but for the most part it was just sort of an  annoying feeling. Then it was on to the color.

It took about 2 hours to finish.

Isn’t she pretty??!!!

She is my offering, my ode to death. She is part of my mid life crisis. And she needs a name! Molly thinks it should be Loco, Moco Madness or Mary Lou. Hmmm. I’ll have to think about that!

I can’t believe how fast this summer is going by. We have a list of activities, projects and places to visit this summer and I feel like all of a sudden I am trying to fit everything in to our calendar. We have been spending most of our days at the pool. Ginger has taken up perfecting her flipping, jumping and diving off the diving board.   Last week we did manage family night at the zoo, dime a dog night with The Clippers, a lecture on The Sells Brothers Circus, ( the Sells Circus was based here in Columbus), and a local church festival.  We also spent a good deal of time lounging around with our new haul of books from our most excellent Main Library.

Today I asked what the girls wanted to do and this is what they choose:

a short hike to this:

Hayden Falls -a hidden gem not to far from us!

Followed by a picnic lunch in the park. A perfect afternoon!!