Have your cake and clean up too

"Is the goal to have a clean kitchen or the experience of making a cake? If the goal is a clean kitchen, then it's better not to have children! ☺ "Ah, but why can't the goal be both a clean kitchen and a cake?" —Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/chores/cake
photo (a link) by Jen Lynch

Abundant peace

"Fill your house with peace, toys, interesting things, good food, and love. Create abundance, not scarcity, even if you have very little in terms of monetary resources. Love and peace and happiness don’t cost a thing." —Colleen Prieto

from Colleen's list at the bottom of "Doing Unschooling Right"
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Surprisingly bigger

You might think you know what water is going to do,
           but it can surprise you.


We can picture how our unschooling will go,
           but it will probably be bigger and better.

SandraDodd.com/unexpectedarticle
photo by Marta Venturini Machado

Choose the good things

No parent has to do anything. They choose to do things.
. . . .
Through all the innumerable factors, how DO people decide?
By deciding what principles they are following. Each principle one clings to eliminates about half the choices in the world easily, and in a good way. Each additional principle eliminates some more options, until the world becomes manageable.

One of my guiding principles is that I want my children's worlds to be sparkly.

There goes the dull and the darkness. Easily not chosen, not an option.

SandraDodd.com/unschool/sparkly, 2004
photo by Irene Adams

Practice acceptance

Practice being accepting of whatever cool things come along, and providing more opportunities for coolness to unfold.

Two things, two words
photo by Jo Isaac

Savor the present

Taste your food, or holiday sweets, and feel the familiarity that you might miss someday.

SandraDodd.com/being
clickable photo by Sandra Dodd
(well all photos are clickable, but this one leads somewhere)

Framing the sun

No one else sees the world just as you do.

SandraDodd.com/angles
photo by Olivia Turner