attachment/peaceful/respectful/mindful parenting, though I have "bad days" just like everyone else. I'm not a bottomless well of patience!

 

I attempt to live the way I would like to see my children live when they reach adulthood. By that I mean that I try to remember that they are watching and listening at all times and they will naturally emulate what they see and hear. I know that I am not their sole influence, but I am a *big* one. I remind myself of that on a daily basis (and on a minute by minute basis when I feel like I'm losing it).

 

I'm with my kids all day every day, but believe it or not, my *entire* life doesn't revolve around my kids. The majority of my time is spent interacting with them, but I do have hobbies of my own. They just take a backseat to connecting with my kids. In my "spare" time (HAH!) I enjoy crocheting and knitting. I recently bought a drop spindle and have been learning to spin. I am a member of a Pagan women's bellydance troupe and enjoy doing mehndi, though I rarely have the opportunity to do it with a toddler around. I'm a "ghost tracker" on the weekends, and I'm also an artist. I've recently gotten into Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) and other forms of mail and altered arts. I love to read and listen to all sorts of music. I also like to garden. As a family we like to camp and hike. We also LOVE Halloween and just about anything creepy, scary, spooky or weird. My son and I love to watch Tim Burton films and old horror movies together.

 

In the near future I hope to finally be a homesteader! We have owned a little piece of land for a few years now and hope to have our home in "move in condition" soon. It's a 100+ year old farmhouse that my husband is re-habbing. I used to say "we" but since Catherine came along, well, since I was pregnant with her really, I haven't been able to help out at the house. Once we move in I plan on finally having my BIG garden and a few chickens for starters. I don't ever plan on having other farm animals though, unless they are just pets. I was vegan for several years and am working my way back to being totally vegetarian. (I had meat cravings while pregnant with my daughter and still have them once every few months when she nurses a lot.) My husband is mostly vegetarian now too, but the kids are both meat eaters.    

 

So, that's me in a very tiny nutshell!  

- Dr Seuss

 

"Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children."

- Kahlil Gibran

 

"There is no better way to teach children that they are valuable than by valuing them."

- M. Scott Peck

 

"The price a child pays for being guided into what others think best for him is the diminution of his wholeness."

- Jean Leidloff

 

"Education rears disciples, imitators, and routinists, not pioneers of new ideas and creative geniuses. The schools are not nurseries of progress and improvement, but conservatories of tradition and unvarying modes of thought."

- Ludwig von Mises

 

"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."

- Lao Tzu

 

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

- Mahatma Gandhi

 

"We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing."

- Benjamin Franklin

 

"A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right [person's] brow."

- Charlie Brower

 

"He whose face gives no light shall never become a star."

- William Blake

 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream Discover."

- Mark Twain 

 

"Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise."

- Mary Kay Ash

 

"The greatest achievements were at first and for a time dreams."

- James Allen

 

"If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live."

- Lin Yutang

 

"The memories of tomorrow depends on your attitude today."

- David Weinbaum

 

"Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different."

- Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi

 

"There is no must in art because art is free."

- Wassily Kandinsky

 

"If you judge people you have no time to love them."

- Mother Teresa

 

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

- Mother Teresa

 

"Let us always greet each other with a smile for the smile is the beginning of love."

- Mother Teresa 

 

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless."

- Mother Teresa

 

"The success of love is in the loving. Of course it is natural to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done."

- Mother Teresa