One of the world's finest features

Click to see more waterfalls.

photo by Jihong Tang
(I'll be back the three days.)

Organizational skills

Most skills take more than one intelligence. The organization of tools and supplies probably requires nature intelligence (knowing which things are similar, in various ways), and spatial (seeing patterns and relationships in how things can fit, and be accessed).

People survive without being as organized as Tara Joe's kitchen, but it's good to appreciate the artistry of organizational ability.

If you see someone's desk, or sock drawer, or tools, or fruit bowl nicely arranged, maybe mention that you noticed.

Intelligences
photo by Tara Joe Farrell
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Threads

"Connection translates to trying to find more things that might tie into something that she might have liked before. Connection could translate to being excited about a bug or a thread or a cartoon."

—Pushpa Ramachandran,
part of Being means being

Thread literally is a tiny cord, but thread figuratively is a series of connections, and so it comes full circle.

Interwoven
photo by Nina Kvitka
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Relax

Sleeping is natural and necessary. Help children feel good about sleeping.

Sleep When You're Tired
photo by Colleen Prieto

Thinking this way or that

I think in words. My husband thinks in patterns. So people think more of emotions or colors, or of biological needs.

When I don't know what something is, I can't think of it in words. Sometimes that will happen—one's usual mode or "setting" isn't available, or isn't working! Think about how you think.

Something can be beautiful even if you don't know what it is.


SandraDodd.com/mystery
photo by Nina Kvitka

Breathe and smile

Who you are, no one else can be.

Who you are now is not who you were before. Who you are today is not who you will be tomorrow.

Breathe and smile and step toward your future.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Elise Lauterbach ___

Admirable and attractive

Perspectives do change, if people want to learn.

Different perspectives will affect what you respect, too. What is admirable, that you want to head toward? What is attractive, and pulls you nearer? What is disturbing or embarrassing, that you want to step away from?

The origin of that, or a link to
Getting warm
or to other posts on perspective
photo by Karen James

First aid for scary, sad days of doubt

I wrote this on March 10, 2000:

Sometimes it's kids, sometimes it's parents.

Let's list ideas for cheering up, and de-funkifying.

I love "breathe."
Whether it's jogging or breath-holding, or laughing, or spinning or meditation—whatever causes a sudden more concentrated and less thought-laden intake of oxygen is relaxing.

I like happy music or funny, familiar movies—the stuff you already know and can put on as background, which reminds you subliminally of more peaceful and carefree days.

I like comfort food, playing with ice cubes, going to the store just to buy something cold (lettuce, apples, ice cream, a small soda for all to share, special juice or fancy tea in a bottle—something cold and soothing, and no doubt this works better in the desert than it might in Minnesota this morning).

Painting—not fancy elaborate painting, but big brush strokes on big scrap paper, or a sign for the dog, or painting on a playhouse outside or something that doesn't involve stress (if it's quickly available).

Mix it up: Wear something you haven't worn for a long time. To assist a kid to do this, get out the off-season clothes and see what's not fitting, or find some funky old thing of yours and see if the kid wants it, or stop at a garage sale and get a t-shirt for a quarter or something. A new color, a new picture, some soft cotton or silk. Marty got a silk shirt at a thrift store the other day for $3. He's thrilled. Wears it like a jacket over t-shirts. Touches the sleeves a lot.

While this stuff is being done/discussed/reviewed, the depressing problem is being dispersed, forgotten, avoided. Next time the depression comes (if it does, if it's a long-term thing) the kid or parent will approach it with a more relaxed mind and calmer body.

More ideas??
. . . .
What works at your house?

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Read responses with other ideas here: Conversations with Sandra Dodd


photo by Alex Polikowsky

Approaching solidity

There is a danger when someone's own understanding and practice of unschooling is shaky, and she wants the approval of others more than the solid joyful everyday life of her family. I've seen a few of those.

Another problem comes when someone's reasons for unschooling are not about learning and family relationships, but about being way cool and out there, and cutting edge, and anti-this'n'that. But that sets the stage for lots of problems in insecure people, when they want to glom onto something that's wild and new and shocking.

Unschooling is...
photo by Alex Polikowsky
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Hooks to hang ideas on

You have to know a lot to learn more, and if you know nothing, you can't learn anything.

SandraDodd.com/connections
photo by Dawn Todd

Warmer and more comfortable

Make conscious choices, in little ways, in ways that make your family warmer and more comfortable. Not a few big decisions, but a hundred of little decisions in the next 20 hours. Tone of voice. Smile/no-smile. Patience/rush. Gentle/jerky.

about stepping up and getting calmer
photo by Jo Fielding
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Alphabetize your shoes

To someone who thought unschooling might be hard because she liked structure:

If you like structure, reorganize your spices, or make a birthday calendar and buy cards for everyone for the coming year and start putting clippings or little stickers inside the envelopes of various individuals. Alphabetize your shoes. Do something that doesn't hinder your kids, to fulfill your need for structure and organization.


That was from 2003. People are less likely now to send clippings, or birthday cards. The principle still holds true, though. 🙂

What about structure?
photo by Manessah Ellender Garcia
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Escape, Relaxation, Stories

Escapism isn't a bad thing.

Relaxation is a great thing.

Taking in stories and ideas is a healthy human thing that's been happening since cavemen sat around fires (or since Adam and Eve started comparing notes about what they might've seen or eaten that day, if you prefer that).


When I came to see whether the quote above had been used,
I searched for "cavemen" and found
Elvis, Barbie and Rebellion.
The quote above is from "Safe on the Couch"
photo by Jo Isaac

Images of light

I am grateful to Lisa Jonick for letting me use photos she had taken, over the years, here. Some of my favorite posts have her photos.

I like the matching chickens contrasting beautifully with the green wall, on a snowy day best. You might like others better.

Here they are! Enjoy.

One more way to randomize Just Add Light and Stir
photo by Lisa Jonick

Step by step

Schuyler wrote:

I can almost pinpoint the minute when I turned from feeling a need to have my own needs met in a separate but equal kind of way to seeing how being with Simon and Linnaea was meeting my needs in the most involved and deep way....

For me, it was very clearly incremental, it was a step by step building from small changes to a point where I was in a position to find personal fulfilment in being with my children. It wasn't martyrdom, or it didn't feel as though I'd sacrificed myself for their joy. It did help to get the almost kinetic memory of being kind to them, of meeting them where they were instead of expecting them to meet me where I was.

—Schuyler Waynforth

Read more; it's good: SandraDodd.com/needs
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Sparkly thoughts and moods

When someone said she should make her house seem more sparkly, I wrote:

Not seem. No pretending.

Not your house. Your thoughts, your interactions, your moods, your responses. Sparkling, like sparkling from one thought to another, connecting a picture with a song with a joke with a movie with a dog.

Sparkly ideas
photo by Colleen Prieto
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News or nostalgia

Today, something different. It's an invitation to smile, and probably to laugh. I'm sharing my secret stash of favorite cheer-up videos, collected for the days I need them. Dancing babies, mysterious Japanese philosophy, auto-tuned glory, Yoda, and the words of "a desert hobo" might make you think thoughts that remind you of the first time you thought them, or might make you wish this wasn't the first time you had sung along.
SandraDodd.com/fun
Please take some time to share smiles and create memories with a loved one.

Happy and healthy appreciation

If people live wanting what they think they "deserve," they will not be as happy or healthy as if they could live appreciating what they have.

SandraDodd.com/abundance
photo by Kelly Halldorson
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The more you know...

The more you know about something, the more you can know, because there are more and more hooks to hang more information on—more dots to connect.

Concepts, experience and emotions
photo by Jo Isaac

"Sculpture" and other words

This photo is from a Chinese Lantern Festival event.


What is a Chinese lantern? What is "a lantern"? These have wire frames with cloth, and electric light inside. There are many other kinds of lanterns, both more traditional and modern.

In Albuquerque, balloonists sometimes get together to inflate their balloons at night. They stay on the ground, and the fire from the hot-air-creating burner will light the huge balloon up from the inside beautifully.

Back to the photo, though. It'a a monkey. It's a Chinese zodiac symbol. Geometry and technology were involved, with some traditional ideas about connecting pieces of cloth to create three-dimensional forms. It is a tool of cultural exchange, of good will, from a country at odds with our own. It is a propaganda monkey, and an art monkey. It was a happy light in darkness.

One thing is many things.

The flow of words
photo by Sandra Dodd, of other people's art
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