In a nutshell

"...lots going on so this is just the bits all scattered in one post as they pop in my head"

We've had a lot of snow and it's been really pretty. I'm really enjoying the views of our backyard. We do have a gorgeous piece of property which I love. I'm going to miss my trees.

I bought a new sewing machine to replace my Mexican one which although it adapted to our current okay with a transformer, it had bobbin issues and needed a tune up. Taking it to the repair shop with the transformer seemed daunting. I just decided to buy a new low budget one and will be giving this other one to my sister to take back home next time. Now I just want to attack sewing projects but we have the move coming...dread!

My neighbors (ie local girlfriends) strongarmed me into having a Christmas party this coming Saturday. I'm not so sure it's such a good idea. The adult part sounds fun to me but thirteen unsupervised kids tearing through my house scares me a bit. It's too late to back out but I did consider using gastro as an excuse once or twice.

Little S's bully is at it again and now has stolen his new hat. I'm really mad because this kid is a terror and bullies all the little ones at his school but especially S. He's stolen lots of things from S over the past few months including his entire Dreamworks card collection. This was a really nice ski hat I bought in the alps and gave to S to wear recently because it's been so cold so he stole MY favorite ski hat, little f*cker. Why are 12 year olds stealing hats from six year olds on the playground anyway? Who's watching what's going on? Tomorrow I think I'm going in to see the directeur and I'm going to ask him that very same question. SO, so, soooooo happy to be done with public school in one week and "Jordan" The Terror.

I'm really into all my Steiner books right now and currently reading John Holt, on my second book now, but usually divided between two or three books at a time. It's great reading and I can't get enough of it. I just wish I could get Seb to read some of this so I'd have someone to discuss it with. He doesn't have time but I think it's important, especially the Steiner because it's important to understand the why. I'm trying to concentrate on building my knowledge of Waldorf/Steiner schools and not so much focusing on homeschooling right now. It occurs to me I'm actually doing my teacher training that I'd wanted to do this year. I can see from the readings that I would be a wonderful Waldorf school teacher and I would love every second of it. I guess I get my wish as far as being a Steiner school teacher but I hope the homeschooling aspect of it works out. Loving the pedagogy and teaching a homeschool version of it may be two different things. I also feel like I don't know near enough about Steiner to insert this into my home without it feeling stiff. It's very vast and I want to know it all before I start, but it's practically impossible because Steiner runs deep let me tell you!

Seb has been gone for the last eight days but he comes back tomorrow. The things we get used to. I don't know why we're always apart. I'll be happy to see him back home for a bit.

We move our things out of the house in 12 days. That seems impossible to imagine. After that we're living out of suitcases. Kind of adventurous so I don't mind but it is kind of nuts. I was explaining to Charlotte why we couldn't put a Christmas tree up and then I just gave up. We went to the store and I bought a few decorations which we hung on the doorknobs. Voila! ummm ....Christmas, yes. I say that but it's hard for me to let go of the holidays this year. I know it's important to let go of all that sometimes and I'm trying. I just hope I won't have a meltdown at mil's.

I ordered all the kids gifts off of Etsy. I found some wonderful things! I encourage everyone to buy handmade next holiday. I'm so excited to see their gifts because they're really special. I tried to order for my family too but had some logistical problems with address changes and international credit card orders-- anyway I was happy to at least do most of my shopping this way.

The picture at the top of this post is of some snowflakes we made and then painted using Steiner wet-on-wet painting which I love btw. They're really pretty like stained glass in the daylight. I cut them out and the kids paint them although S is starting to get the hang of cutting them out. I'll try to post an atelier about them but I bet I won't have time. So very quickly I'll say: watercolor papers, paints, scissors (scrapbooking scissors are fun too!)--snowflakes-- just follow pdf instructions found easily on internet and then, drop flakes in a waterbath for a few minutes, and then watercolor using primaries only (RBY). Let dry on a radiator and be careful because they're fragile.

Hopefully I'll get a few more posts in before we tranfer ourselves to Th*n*n at the end of December. We're spending winter break in the alps before we leave! yippee!