Valentine Round up 2023

I love making handmade gifts for friends and family (and I hope they like receiving them too!). I think that there is nothing more special than a gift in which someone puts effort, time and thought into, especially when you can just click a few buttons and have a gift sent to someone that you never even physically saw or touched.  

Valentine's day is next week, so I thought I would round up a few patterns that can completed quickly (meaning this weekend!!) and yet are beautiful.  As a bonus, all of them are free (other than materials).

2023 Mother Culture Reading list

I am slowly working on getting back to blogging.  Honestly, I don't know what that is going to look like or what direction this blog is going to take - crafts, recipes, devotionals, home school....

I do know that in 2023 I plan to focus on completing things that help me to grow.  So I took my cue from Charlotte Mason, an educator from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who advocated for mother's to continue their own education.  It is so easy as a home school, stay at home mother to get wrapped up in serving our families and neglecting our own need for mental growth.  Charlotte Mason recognized this and not only worked to create a philosophy of education for children, but she also created a mother's education course.

In this course she created a reading list and exams that  would assist mothers in confirming their Christian faith, the knowledge of caring for their children's mental and physical health, better understanding the principles of education and how to implement them with their own children, and in the area of studying the natural world around them.  You can access much of her original course selections here.  

In the spirit of her course, I created my own list of readings for this year that I want to share with you.  

I selected 3 books from each of the four categories, giving me a goal of reading at least 1 book a month.  Some are shorter (around 200 pages) while others are longer (over 600 pages!!).  Many have been on my To Be Read pile for some time.  My hope is that by creating this list and sharing it I will be motivated to finish them.  

If you want to see what I am reading, you can download a copy of my list here and let me know if there are any additional books you would recommend!

Mother Culture Monday

Charlotte Mason was always an advocate for learning, and not just for her students.  For twenty-three years she offered the Mother's Education Course (MEC) via mail to those who wished to continue learning and growing.  This course included selections from four broad categories: Divinity, Physiology and Health, Mental and Moral Science & Education, and Nature Lore and Science.  This wasn't casual reading either.  Those in the course were required to read about 100 pages a week and to pass exams on the material to continue!

 Sound like a lot?  Maybe, but not when you break it down.  The average person takes about 2 hours to read 100 pages.  So that is about 15 minutes of reading a day, give or take.  So less time than it takes to watch a sitcom on TV, or cook a meal, or even to nurse a cup of coffee.  Surely we can commit to 15 minutes a day to expand our own minds and continue growing.

Following Charlotte Mason's guidelines, I have created my own reading list for 2023.  Several of the books on this reading list were recommended by fellow Charlotte Mason families, others were chosen due to my personal interests.  I have compiled them into a PDF that you can download and read along with me.  

Sound like it is still a bit too much?  Next week I will share another idea for a reading plan to help you continue to grow in your own education so be sure to subscribe to the blog so you won't miss it!

Click above to view and download the 2023 Education Reading list

 

Last Minute Gift Idea

It may be the beginning of December, but I wanted to share a quick and easy gift idea with you.  This is great for that person who has everything, for the person you just don't know what to buy for, a last minute gift, a white elephant gift, etc.  And it was born from desperation....

I HATE giving gift cards as gifts.  They just really feel impersonal to me.  It feels like I am saying, "Hey, I don't know you well enough or care enough to find a gift that gift that just screams your name to me so I got you a gift card instead."  As a gift, gift cards are right above cash on my worst gifts list.  

That being said, there are times that I just can't get away from them.  Want to give a spa day to your BFF?  You are going to need a gift card.  Want to give your tech loving guy a gift but you just don't know the difference between RAM and Rom?  Better get a gift card instead.  Sending gifts to someone and the cost of shipping has you down?  Send a gift card instead.  And this fun way to present the card won't cost that much more to ship!

Simply print out the image on photo paper, write a note in the grey box, and attach you gift card over it.  Place in a photo frame and you are done!

 

You can download the free PDF here.  Do you have any great last minute gift ideas?  I would love for you to share them in the comments.  Merry Christmas!

 

Friday Features - May 15

I have no idea where this week has gone!  It feels like one day it was Monday and the littles and I did our school lessons and the next thing I knew it was Friday.... We did take yesterday off to enjoy the first day of no rain in quite a while by exploring a new (to us) hiking trail.  I ambitiously thought we might be able to complete the almost 8 mile loop with a two year old.  While he did really well, we made it about 2 miles in and I knew we weren't going to make it.

The first clue was when the girls asked to stop and play on the beach by the lake.  The next clue was when the two year old needed a diaper change and I realized we didn't have the necessary supplies. (Yes, he is still in diapers - don't judge.  This little guy has a lot going on and in the grand scheme of things still being in diapers is not the end of the world for us.) And then he told us he was "all done".... of course we were a mile and a half from the car at that point. 

I have a hiking carrier for him that he loved last spring, summer and fall.  This was the first long hike of the year, so I brought it along figuring he wouldn't make it the whole way on his own two feet.  Only now he hates it.  Like full blown crying hates it.  So here we were, 1.5 miles from the car with a kid with a poo diaper, too tired to walk, but hating his carrier.  My 11 year old and I traded off carrying him in our arms until it started to thunder and rain!  At that point I didn't want either of us slipping on the clay trail when he shifted in our arms. So he went in the backpack and cried while we all got rained on.  Not our best moments.  Fortunately, it was a short (like 5 minutes total) rain and once it stopped he was content to remain in the carrier. 

Even with all that, the kids begged to go back another day.  And all of us felt so much better after finally getting out of the house and going somewhere.  Here are a few of our observations from the hike:

All that time outdoors made me want to spruce up my indoor plants.  I tend to recycle pots over and over and over.  After a while they begin to look.....well, let's just say, "less than pretty".  So this week I am sharing some adorable knit and crochet for plant pots.

I love this knit cable pot cover.  I just envision the slender leaves of my spider plant dangling over the edges...  You can find the free pattern in the April 2014 issue of Knit Today.  What?  You don't have that hanging out on your bookshelf?  Neither do I!  Archive.org, however, has the digital copy available online here.  And you can flip through the entire magazine for some bonus free patterns.  I just love the pattern for Mrs. Badger in this edition.

Bethany over at Whistle and Ivy created this adorable little pot for air plants.  I bet you can even adjust it to fit one of those Oui jars and put a small succulent in it.  She offers four different sizes and since they are small you can easily use up some of those teeny balls of yarn left over from other projects.  Find the pattern here.

And you totally can't talk pot covers or plant hangers without macrame!  I can't help but think of growing up and the plastic-y macrame yarn light cover that hung from the ceiling in our dining room.  Still, macrame and plants just seem to go together.  These plant hangers only use 2 knots, making it great for a beginner project.  You can find the step by step directions here.

Do you have a favorite way to spruce up old flower pots?  I would love it if you would share them with me in the comments.  Until next week...