s/v Lark

Kindergarten Plans

Educating Audrey has really been on our mind lately. Should she go to public kindergarten, or should we start homeschooling immediately? Today we toured and sat in on a supplement to homeschooling program in Boulder. It was a Waldorf inspired program, and a really fun afternoon. The grounds were gorgeous, the staff was friendly and seemed to enjoy the children. When we got there, we were greeted by one of Audrey's friends, who is a student, she immediately whisked Audrey off to gather eggs from the chicken coop, then they were all climbing trees. Later, Audrey and I sat in on some afternoon crafting. They collected dandelions, and made necklaces, learned a fun dandelion song, and then we learned to needle felt. We (mostly Audrey, but she gave me a turn or two) made a sweet little dandelion fairy.

Audrey and I really loved it, Jacob liked it but has a few reservations. If we did decide to go this route, we would also work on academics at home.

needle felting her dandelion fairy

the finished product

Another thing I have been inspired about lately is healthy eating. I have been trying to focus more on making meal plans ahead of time, and incorporating as many fresh vegetables and fruits as possible. I'm pretty proud of tonights dinner. I made a wilted spinach salad with yellow bell peppers, onions, almonds, and a homemade strawberry dressing. We also put on top quinoa with chia seeds and baked salmon. It was SUPER good. I feel healthier already!

5/8

We have another showing tomorrow. One of these times...

I've been reading up on math curricula and the math wars. Singapore Math really appeals to me in that it uses direct instruction of basic math facts and continually builds. It's presented in a colorful, engaging format which I think Audrey will enjoy. I also looked into Saxon Math and Math-U-See. We'll definitely need to do more research on these.

227

5/7

It's going to be so cool some night to be standing watch in the tropics and watching the bioluminescence in the wake. Maybe one of my girls will be sitting in the cockpit with me, while everyone else is asleep. It'll be a nice breezy night, not too windy, and we'll be sitting quietly watching for fishing boats. We'll have just recently gotten into Mexican waters, and I'll notice it out of the corner my eye. We'll spend the next hour staring at it, entranced. It'll be great.

5/6

It's Sweet Pea's 63rd birthday!

Southern Cross 39
- http://www.sailboatlistings.com/view/35547

Spencer 44
- http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/boatMergedDetails.jsp?boat_id=1875472&checked_boats=1875472&ybw=&units=Feet&access=Public&listing_id=3744&url=&imc=pg-fs
- http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/boatMergedDetails.jsp?boat_id=2521072&ybw=&units=Feet&currency=USD&access=Public&listing_id=76246&url=

Dinner tonight: nice fish

Lorelei put on her own pajamas:

The girls took turns as coachman and princess:

5/5

We had a showing today and almost had one yesterday. Here's a bunch of interesting links.

http://womenandcruising.com/cruising-children-speak.htm

https://sites.google.com/site/namaniatsea/nicky-s-page/boat-life---the-kid-s-perspective
(Who knew -- catamaran kids are clique-ish?)

Lesson Plans Ahoy (Second Edition): Hands-On Learning for Sailing Children and Home Schooling Sailors
http://www.amazon.com/Lesson-Plans-Ahoy-Hands-schooling/dp/0982771401

Cruising with Children
http://www.amazon.com/Cruising-Children-Gwenda-Cornell/dp/0924486279/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367812922&sr=8-1&keywords=Cruising+with+Children

http://www.womenandcruising.com/blog/2010/12/6-tips-for-home-schooling-sailors/

http://womenandcruising.com/sailing-families.htm

http://www.mahina.com/cruise.html
Spencer

Passport 42

valiant

http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/boatMergedDetails.jsp?boat_id=2595146&checked_boats=2595146&ybw=&units=Feet&access=Public&listing_id=1634&url=&imc=pg-fs

westerly

nauticat

bowman

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1985/Bowman-Pilot-House-Sloop---Blue-Water-Cruiser-2376393/Rockland/ME/United-States#.UYcvPoI8xuQ

brewer

http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/boatMergedDetails.jsp?boat_id=2571931&checked_boats=2571931&ybw=&units=Feet&currency=USD&access=Public&listing_id=1707&url=&imc=pg-fs

wauquiez

http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listing/boatMergedDetails.jsp?boat_id=2557354&checked_boats=2557354&ybw=&units=Feet&currency=USD&access=Public&listing_id=76619&url=&imc=pg-fs

corbin

hood wauquiez

5/2

Inexplicably, after fighting to break below 226.2 for weeks, and being up to 229 earlier this week, this morning I weighed 225.7. I don't know how it happened, but it just goes to show, once again, that dogged persistence can often bring unexpected success. So I've officially now lost over 45 pounds since August, and when I break 224, it will be 60 pounds since my all-time high in 2004.

We ordered The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home and The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor. Can't wait to get my hands on those.

I've been enjoying the video logs from s/v Delos. They're like MTV Ocean Rules.

225.7

Well Rounded

To add to what Jacob said in his last post, we have been talking a lot about what home-schooling should look like for our kids. I was feeling inspired, so Audrey and I sat down and I interviewed her on her interests. Without much coaching, this kid came up with a TON of things she likes or wants to learn, or do.

Audrey's list of interests:

Cooking (this was at the top and mentioned several times...she really wants to do all of our meal planning and would like me to just be her sous chef)
Dancing
Swimming
Reading
Gardening
Math
Art
Cleaning (whose kid is this?)
Playing outside
Sewing (she wants to try a sewing machine, and would like to make her own dresses...she also mentioned painting her own fabric for dresses)
Science (like what she learns at Wild Bear)
Photography
Sledding (it snowed 18" today, so it is on the brain)
Playing with friends
Dates with Mommy and Daddy (like going to the movies)
Writing and telling stories
Making her own movie
Mountain climbing
Camping
Sailing
Skiing
Yoga
Capoeira (We had a professional painter in the house for a week that Audrey adored, who teaches this, so now she is really interested)
Biking
Playing piano (she also wants to learn guitar, but she said piano first)
Playing with balls

So, I think that gives us some ideas about where to start! My challenge is how to keep Audrey engaged, and excited doing age appropriate things while doing the same for Lorelei. Oh- and keeping my cool and excitement while managing normal sibling stuff and behavior problems.

Here are some recent pictures:

My new favorite! The girls having a sweet sister moment.

Audrey with her buddy Eliza after dance class

Celebrating my grandmother Verna's 88th birthday

5/1

We're getting kind of excited about homeschooling. My research on the Robinson and A-2 curricula led me to The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. There's something incredibly appealing to me about starting out with the trivium -- writing daily, reading great literature and approaching math from addition and multiplication tables. It just makes sense to me. And I love the way that the classical education builds from the trivium into history, logic, rhetoric, Latin, and sciences. I wish I'd had access to logic and rhetoric in school!

But how in the world does this fit in with unschooling? I'm not sure but it seems to me that being well-read, articulate, and well-rounded provides the child an awesome toolset to power their interest- and joy-led exploration. Obviously it would be counter-productive to drag a child through material that makes them miserable, and I think unschoolers make great points about that.

So anyway, I don't know, I'm thinking 3 or 4 hours a day of classical education with lots of time and support for interest-led stuff. Put all that on boat sailing slowly around the world and I think we've got something incredible in the making.

228

4/30

If anyone thought I was bluffing about this whole sail-away-and-eat-lots-of-fish thing, I just want you to know that I've had fish two days in a row. Delicious!

Following the success of our sunflower starts, April, Lorelei, Audrey and I have started some marigolds, lupines, pumpkins and hot peppers. What fascinating discussions we'll have about how the same soil and water produce such different results as pumpkins and peppers.

Here's the brochure Lisa made for us:

We had our 9th showing today (7 were at the open house on Sunday).

227.8

4/28

We had our open house with Lisa today. 7 groups came through, which was great. That's 8 showings in 2 days.

I've been reading up more on the Valiants and the Robinson Curriculum and a related one called the A-2 curriculum, and I've been really getting into video logs of passages like Estrellita's:

I'm really looking forward to watching all the videos from the passage from Hawaii to Alaska aboard Lealea, an Albin Vega 27.

These videos are great for fueling our inspiration. One thing I've learned over the years is that the biggest obstacle to success in a long-term effort is often simply losing interest as the novelty of the idea wears off and an array of a million mundane tasks necessary to realize it comes into focus. So these things are really great.

229, for crying out loud.

Mister Sid's Tuxedos

Audrey reminds of the old man from Forget Paris lately! As we are driving she likes to read off all the things she has time to see. It is really fun watching her get better and better at it each day.

4/27

D+2

Man, I'm falling off the wagon.

Lisa came and took pictures and put up a prodigious number of signs on Thursday. We hit the MLS Friday. We had our first official realtor showing today. The folks were not interested, as they want level land for animals, but we did get great compliments on the house from the realtor, which was really nice and validating.

Audrey's been reading me stories every evening and she's doing really well with them.

I got back to boat research a little today with some exhaustive research on Valiant 40s. I hadn't realized that was Bob Perry's first design. It's a very well regarded offshore vessel, but there was a period from 1978 to 1981 when many of the boats that were built would later develop a serious blistering problem. Of course all the most affordable V40s are blister boats, unfortunately.

I came across the Robinson Curriculum today. It looks really interesting. I like the focus on learning to learn. Of course it's a long way from unschooling, though it seems as if the might be sort of complimentary after all.

I simply must break through 226.

226.8

4/24

D-1.

I've been hungry a lot on this diet, and I'm occasionally tempted to devour my young.

4/23

D-2. We did another showing today. I read some more of Inspecting the Aging Sailboat. Audrey read me a couple stories and we did some number activities.

4/22

Oh yeah, what happened to all that D-n business? With all that snow last week Lisa thought we shold push our listing yet again. So now we're at D-4.

Lorelei and I did some Kumon folding activities today.

4/21

Really not much in the way of moving toward our goal this weekend, other than checking a couple items off the list of things we ought to do while we still live in Colorado: Pike's Pike, Garden of the Gods, Manitou Springs Cliff Dwellings. We did spend 2 nights as a family in a rather cozy hotel room, so that was good practice for close-quarters family life. And of course Audrey got in her sea-berth practice.

I've been practicing a couple other important skills for a life full of unanticipated challenges, one of the handier being laughing at trouble. I have this image of Dad going to haul in a line and, rather than whatever result was desired, the block at the other end simply falls into the water as the cotter pin falls out due to a missing curly wire. Where I would normally go red in the face and start cursing, Dad just laughs and moves on to working out a solution. I'm not sure if this specific thing ever actually happened, or just lots of little experiences along those lines, but I've been working on emulating Dad's reaction and I'm happy with the results so far. It's so much more empowering to laugh confidently at trouble than to splutter in impotent rage.

4/19

Audrey's practicing for sleeping in a sea berth tonight.

-57.9 since 2004, -45.1 since 2012 @ 226.1

4/18

Audrey finished TYCTR today, and she does indeed know how to read. The challenge for us now is to find material interesting enough to keep her engaged while keeping the vocabulary do-able. She wants to read Anne of Green Gables, but that's got some serious vocabulary. I'm not sure how to proceed on that. I know that she enjoys the story since we've read it twice, and I don't want to limit her, but I don't want to give her something that would be discouragingly difficult. We'll figure it out.

We finished South from Alaska. That's a really great inspiring book.

I've been really enjoying reading Inspecting the Aging Sailboat.

Remind to tell you about the valuable lessons I've been learning about stress, anxiety, and mindset. I'm kinda sleepy now though.

226.5

4/17

Audrey read lesson 99. We got another lead on a possible buyer. Winter has finally arrived.

4/16

We had another showing today.

4/14

Another super busy and exhausting day. I'm too tired to write down everything we did today, but I'm sore all over and we are living in a model home now.

22.69

4/12

Super busy day.

I smashed that little slab that the excavators left lying willy-nilly behind the house a couple years ago; reinstalled all the light fixtures I had taken down to convert from gold finish to bronze; stained the baseboard and shoe that Matt the handyman installed yesterday; cut and installed the last deck board; installed a bunch of faceplates, some of which have been missing since the painting, others since we moved in; replaced a couple outlets; fixed a door jam we'd modified to install a baby gate; fixed the heat lamp in the bathroom, which had been missing its cover since the painters were here; touched up the kitchen and front door paint; and stained the upstairs door frame. April also passed along that gigantic tube TV we've had since Girdwood.

Tomorrow the trash hauler will come to remove our refuse pile from all these projects, and we will clean the garage and girls' rooms yet again; reinstall some trim pieces on the stairs; install some trim prices on the garage; put up the last pieces of staging art; clean the pellet stove; and install the last of the catches in the kitchen.

226.7

4/11

D-5

Matt got some plumbing and lighting installed. We got the dining room show-able. Audrey read lesson 96 and was disappointed not to forge ahead to 97.

We have probably our last agent-less showing on Tuesday.

226.5

4/10

So yeah, we had 7 people and 3 dogs at the house today. Melissa and Keegan mostly finished, though weather ruled out re-staining the deck. All the new paint looks awesome. Matt the handyman made good progress, installing the new vanity top downstairs, wall base and overhead lights in the garage, and coat hooks in the mud room. Tomorrow he'll install tub and sink fixtures and baseboard in the kitchen.

April and I have so far gotten (and kept, more importantly), the kitchen, office and upstairs bedroom show-ably clean. Another 8 boxes of stuff and 30 gallons of trash went out the garage.

Audrey read me lessons 94 and 95 today and I had to disappoint her by saying goodnight before she could read me lesson 96.

227.3

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

What have we gotten ourselves into?! If we weren't already so invested in all of this, today would have sent me running for the hills. It started with waking up feeling sick, I think what Jacob had last week has gotten me. Then the painters painted over Lorelei's mural, and I had a total sobbing break-down in front of everyone (I'm a pretty sentimental person), and because the girls rooms were being painted today we had to skip nap time. That led straight into a trip to Home Depot with two exhausted girls that melted down in the aisle over some spilled raisins. I had lots of stares (and a few truly sympathetic looks) as my 5 year old threw herself on the floor in front of the bathroom fixtures. Then at Cost Plus Audrey accidentally pushed the emergency exit door and the alarms went off, calling every employee plus a few customers to see what was going on.

To top it all off we only have 2 episodes left to watch in the TV series The Tudors and we haven't been able to watch for a week because we are so busy cleaning and staging. I'm going to try for a little positive thinking straight out of The Little Engine that Could...I think I can, I think I can...

we did have a little fun this week. The girls and I went to Yoga at Shoshoni Yoga Retreat

and music class

4/8, 4/9

We're so ridiculously busy that I'm having trouble finding time to blog.

At D-9, we're spending each evening getting a different room to final show-ability along with restoring show-ability in each room we've previously done.

In the meantime we have new roommates, Melissa and Keegan, the capoeiristo painters, who have been spending the days here with us since Thursday. Tomorrow, Matt the handyman will be joining the 6 of us and our 2 dogs here at the house for a couple days of odd jobs.

226.6

4/7

Another big work day on the house -- April went through her closet and dressers and reduced their inventory again by half. I took all the gold lighting fixtures out to the driveway and, despite the oncoming blizzard, spray painted them "oiled bronze," and changed the gold tub fixtures to "brushed nickel" likewise. We took everything out of the pantry, threw half of it away, and will put the rest back tomorrow once I install the new pantry storage thing we got today at Costco.

We also picked up a new vanity top and tub fixtures for the downstairs bathroom. So now that bathroom is getting a new vanity top, vanity faucet, medicine cabinet, vanity light fixture, shower fixtures, towel bar, and is getting painted, and having the shower doors replaced.

Audrey read lesson 93 and we did another simple addition lesson. She picked out a new book at Costco and spent the entire drive home reading us pony stories.

D-10

4/6

We got some good stuff at Ikea. We managed to get out for $300.

Our painter is doing a really nice job. I'm especially happy with her drywall repairs.

Realtor picture day is this coming Friday. We have a lot to do...

229.9

4/5

Painting proceeds apace. Tomorrow we're trooping down to Ikea for some cheap staging accessories.

230.5

4/5

Painting proceeds apace. Tomorrow we're trooping down to Ikea for some cheap staging accessories.

230.5

A Year of Change

This has been a year of big changes!

First with deciding to set our goals on a new adventure, then fixing up and selling the house (a huge project). Now we are potty training Lorelei. We are currently on day 12, and she is doing really really well! We are still reminding her regularly but she is having very few accidents. I see the light, and I feel that soon I will not be changing diapers anymore. I know this sounds crazy, but I'm actually a little sad...it is a big step away from babyhood.

Now both Jacob and I have started new jobs. For me, this is the first time I have worked out of the home in over 5 years. It is a part-time job, and I'm feeling very lucky to have the best of both worlds. I still get to spend lots of time with my girls, but it feels nice to work again!

Oh, and Jacob has shaved all his facial hair for the first time in 7 years!

What's next?

Here are a few pictures I have been meaning to post:

Audrey Egg hunting on Easter

Lorelei egg hunting

Spending Easter with my cousin Zoe and my grandmother

my girls at the zoo

4/2

D-12 days until listing.

Experiments with spray-painting lighting and tub fixtures to change their finish yielded positive results today. Looks like we'll be able to save a few bucks there.

Not much else to report for today.

55 down, 29 to go, at 229.0.

4/1

For April Fool's this year, my girls decided on a destroying-the-carpet theme. Between doing lesson 91 and a lesson out of the Kumon addition book, and some stager-directed rearranging, I spent most of the day applying Resolve. A little urine here, a patch of barf there, 8 ounces of purple grape juice over here, and some cherry red chap stick over in the next room, just to make it extra fun. First world problems...

3/31

Well, not our most productive weekend in terms of preparing for this sale, but we made some good headway on clearing out and cleaning up per our stager's guidance.

Audrey continues to crank through these TYCTR lessons. She read us lesson 91 this morning.

We are getting lots of inspiration from South from Alaska.

3/whatever

Struggling... Audrey forges ahead with lessons, while I've come down with whatever the rest have had. No idea how we will have the house ready in time to list.

3/27

Amazing how much junk can accumulate in 1800 square feet. We keep hauling away loads of stuff and I keep pulling out more loads of stuff. Here's what I pulled out this evening:

And here's the state of the garage:

It's actually way better than it was, but I think I may have been premature in my declaration of park-ability. Well, we'll continue putting one foot in front of the other. Hopefully we'll be ready when our listing date arrives.

Audrey handily dispatched lesson 88 and a lesson from our Kumon addition book. Lorelei did a few lessons from her Kumon cutting book. Not sure what the educational value of it is, but who doesn't love cutting?

231

3/26

Audrey did a nice job with lesson 86 today. Yesterday, she wrote down her first original sentence: "Yer the gratist mom."

Lorelei made it through her first day without a potty accident. That's a big first. It will certainly help with selling the house not to have a smelly diaper pail in her room.

We got a bunch of the decor items that the staging consultant recommended. I've often thought how strange it is to fix up a house only when you're trying to leave it. So of course I wanted to see what that was like.

I dropped off 5 boxes of old papers at the transfer station that we had cleared out of the office this weekend and 90 gallons (in 3 30 gallon trash bags) of other junk from the garage. April also took 5 boxes of old kid stuff down the hill. Every box and bag we get rid of feels like a weight off of my shoulders. It makes me think of those boats at Cabo which were able to abandon their ground tackle and get away relatively unscathed.

230.3

3/25

Audrey did lesson 86 and and a bunch of simple addition lessons.

We finally completely unloaded all the too-small kid clothes. All the books we're unloading will go tomorrow, and 8 boxes of old papers to the recycle bin.

232.9

3/24

We did it. Almost. The garage will be park-able once we sell, donate, and throw out the contents of those respective pile. That was pretty exhausting. We also plowed through most oh what remained in the office which just boxes of miscellany

Audrey did lesson 85 in TYCTR and lessons 3, 4, and 5 in our Kumon Simple Addition book.

232.5

3/23

Audrey did lessons 83, 84 and 85 in the last couple days, and has been reading me some Frog and Toad. We also started our Kumon simple addition book.

April and I made good progress on the final office clean-up. We also did a purge of the kitchen cabinets so they're looking a lot nicer now. Tomorrow, we will get the garage to 2-car parkability.

230.5

3/21

Audrey did a great job with lesson 82.

I finished Vigor's Things I Wish I'd Known today. Lots of great info in that one. We'll definitely take that one with us on the boat. Thanks Mom!

Now for a little Mike and Alissa.

230.7

3/20

I have really been struggling to keep up my daily accountability to the blog. I'll get back on the horse...

But anyway. Audrey continues to make great progress on TYCTRI100L. She blew through lesson 82 this evening.

We've gotten Mike and Alisa through the Marquesas and into the Tuamotus. He's a really good writer. Really interesting new posts from him recently on thelifegalactic.blogspot.com.

229.3

3/17

We spent 4 hours in the garage purging. Man, does that feel good. Some of it was a little emotional too, but it sure feels nice to have it done.

Audrey did very well with lesson 79. 20 more lessons to go! Next I think we'll try some number games. We have these nice little Kumon books for that.

234.1

Letting Go

Lorelei wearing her 1st Christmas dress

I'm way too sentimental. We have been cleaning up and trying to get the house ready. Today we tackled the garage which included 5 or 6 large 30 gallon bags (or 150 gallons) full of kids clothes. We have been debating what to do with them for over a year...sell on craigslist, consign, donate. My goal was always to make some money from them in order to help finance our new adventure, so today I tried consignment. I loaded up the bags and drove down to Boulder, only to find out that our local kids consignment store does not accept consignment on Sundays. Next stop, Arvada. After lugging in all the bags, waiting over an hour for them to go through them all, they took about 1/4 of one bag. Leaving behind some really cute summer stuff from name brand stores because they were in small sizes! The whole process was so stressful for me. Even though I wanted to make some money, I felt like I would throw-up when they decided to take Lorelei's 1st Christmas dress. I'm so attached to those tiny little clothes, and the memories they hold. And to top it all off, I think I pulled a muscle in my shoulder hauling all of those bags. The thought of doing it all again tomorrow in Boulder sounds miserable so I think I will just donate the rest to the Nederland Community Closet. Hopefully it will be like ripping off the band-aid, and at least it will go to the community I love.

The purging is going well otherwise though. As Jacob mentioned, we really reduced the amount of STUFF in Audrey's room! It is so nice in there now, I don't know how we lived with it before.

Some photos from the last couple weeks that I have been meaning to post: