Showing posts with label flora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flora. Show all posts

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Wonderful and unexpected


"It's wonderful how parenting this way heals parts of our own past unexpectedly."
—Jen Keefe


The quote is from a story of memories affecting parenting, and vice versa, here: SandraDodd.com/sleep/memories
photo by Jo Isaac

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Aim for better

Joyce Fetteroll wrote:

Rather than shooting for perfect, why not aim for better? Perfect you're bound to miss and you will have failed. But better is doable. 🙂

We all have issues about something. They go deep and are tangled up around other stuff but working at them bit by bit can make them better.
—Joyce Fetteroll

SandraDodd.com/issues
photo by Hema Bharadwaj

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Something sweet; do it again

Decision time isn't about what you will do next year or for the rest of your child's life. Decision time is about what you will do in the next five seconds. I recommend getting up and doing something sweet for another person, wordlessly and gently. Never send the bill; make it a gift you forget all about. Do that again later in the day. Don't tell us, don't tell them, just do it.

SandraDodd.com/change
photo by Theresa Larson

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Choices, for partners

When you choose to say something or to wait, think of which will be more patient, or less critical. If you decide to say something, think of two things and choose the one that is closer to the person you want to be. If you choose not to say anything, consider your posture and demeanor. Choose to be gentle, and not to express negative emotion.

Sometimes choose quiet space, but not hateful silence.

With practice, it gets easier.


SandraDodd.com/betterpartner
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Friday, November 11, 2022

Shadowy gifts

If you look, you might see things!

Thinking "that's just a pumpkin" might make you miss the star that was there for a little while.

Most things are more things. Keep looking.

other shadow photos in this blog
and a few on my website
photo by Holly Dodd

Saturday, August 6, 2022

Head the right direction

There are paths that lead away from unschooling and paths that lead toward it. There are ways to do it better and ways to torpedo it irreparably.

Just because there's more than one way doesn't mean there's an infinite number of ways.

There's more than one way to get to Santa Fe from Albuquerque. There are four or five ways by road, one much better than any others; there's light rail; there's flight (impractical); there's walking (crazy). There are thousands of ways to leave Albuquerque and get to places far, far from Santa Fe.

Direction, and unschooling
photo by Cátia Maciel

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Smiling, patient, gentle

If you feel helpless, you are.
If you feel powerless, you are.

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

Help yourself find the power to make your family's moments better.

SandraDodd.com/choices
photo by Elise Lauterbach

Monday, July 18, 2022

"T" is for Teaching

This photo is the background for the "T" on the Learn Nothing Day logo.
"Teaching" isn't always about learning. Learning happens inside the learner.


"Children will flourish if their needs are joyfully met as they explore the world. Creatively support your child in what he's genuinely interested in."
—Debbie Regan,
at The Problem with Teaching


This image was used in 2019, at Some ideas for beginning.
Thank you, Lisa Jonick.

Monday, June 27, 2022

Rainbows and shooting stars

Though I've seen some beautiful rainbows, and some doubles, I have missed more than I've seen. That can't be helped.

If I planned in advance to show someone else a rainbow, I couldn't guarantee a sighting.

Friends travelled from New Mexico to Finland to see Northern Lights, and failed to spot any.

Even during meteor shower times, you might miss them all.

And so?

Consider each sighting a blessing and a tiny miracle. Count the things you saw, and not the things you missed.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Theresa Larson

Thursday, February 24, 2022

Oh, wait!

Same boring, stupid, same-old...
Oh, wait! A Quonset hut, back there, with a side building. Look at the tumbleweed. That attachment looks very cool, whatever it does.

Curiosity
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Saturday, January 22, 2022

Step thoughtfully

If somebody said, "I want to walk to Santa Fe from Albuquerque," it matters which direction they go. It matters that they have water. It matters if they know how they're going to go. You can die between here and Santa Fe—it's a frickin' desert.

People can ruin their lives with unschooling if they don't know where they're going. If they just intend to make a bunch of wild decisions and mill around, it won't work. Their kids will end up needing to go back to school, and being clueless kids in school. So it's almost that big a project. You will have to take hundreds of thousands of steps. And so it's better to take a step thoughtfully, knowing what direction you're going, than to thunder around yelling, "I'm an unschooler! I'm an unschooler!" and not get anywhere.

So I think they need to understand the direction they're going, and why. And they can get there a lot faster and a lot more whole, and with a lot more peace and understanding, if they will Read a little, try a little, wait a while and watch.



Extras with Sandra Dodd
I was speaking, not writing. You can listen (at 15:15), or read the transcript.

photo by Sandra Dodd, in Golden, New Mexico, March 2020
(the last time I left town)

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

Receiving Light by mail...

Some of you should be seeing an improved mailing. Our replacement for the longtime "feedburner" was not as clean or as pretty as Just Add Light and Stir needs. Having heard what I liked, wanted, and wished for, Vlad Gurdiga has created his own subscription system.

One hundred subscribers have been moved to the new program as a test. I missed this year's anniversary (September 2), but Just Add Light and Stir is over 11 years old now! Thank you for reading, and I hope that soon every subscriber will have a more beautiful e-mail to open each day.
Without Vlad's generous help, much of our long-collected unschooling information would be unavailable. I'm very grateful.

Gratitude
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Thursday, April 22, 2021

A quiet moment

If you need an image to assist with creating a quiet moment, to center yourself, to let your thoughts swirl more slowly, and settle quietly, here is the recent full moon in southern New Mexico, in an image by Theresa Larson.

I'm grateful for the use of beautiful captures of things others have seen, saved, and let me share here.
Stillness (with a snow photo)
photo by Theresa Larson

Sunday, January 31, 2021

Where learning abounds

Unschooling should be rich, flowing and mindful living where learning abounds. Too many people see "living" as nothing more than the absence of death. Let's encourage sparkly, bubbly, warm and effusive lives.

SandraDodd.com/sparkly
photo by Elise Lauterbach
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Saturday, January 9, 2021

Just the right words

Pam Laricchia wrote:
"I love writing. The process of throwing down my thoughts and ideas about unschooling onto the page and then rethinking and reorganizing and rewriting and editing until I figured out both what I was trying to say, and just the right words to use so that it made sense to the reader, is exhilarating."
"Unschooling is Life" has that quote,
though I did change the last part to present tense.
photo by Theresa Larson

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Frosty

frost on grasses with a log fence and mountains behind
Life produces some fragile, fleeting things.

Cass Kotrba photographed frost so beautifully that you can see the individual ice crystals that formed on the grass, in northern Colorado.

Some people live where this doesn't happen.



You can click it for a larger image you can zoom in on better.
some other fleeting things
photo by Cass Kotrba

Friday, October 2, 2020

Smiling about Smiling

Find something to smile about.

Beginners, aim for once per day—one extra smile.

More experienced unschoolers, raise that to several a day, and then once per hour.

Before long, you'll be smiling easily and more often than you could count.

You'll know you're significantly happier when just the thought of counting smiles will make you smile.
Sparkly Unschooling
photo by Karen James
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Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Climb up a notch.

Tina Bragdon wrote:

For all you negative people out there, you really can change, but you have to want to change. That concept of changing the next moment is so powerful, especially if you feel overwhelmed like I did at the thought of a total life overhaul all at once. You can chose to read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch, and "climb up a notch." And even if it is "just" a tiiiiiinnny notch at first, the positivity and joy builds on the next moment and perpetuates itself, an beautiful ongoing circle as you climb up out of being cynical and negative.

And, the view is great up here!

—Tina Bragdon

Seeing and Avoiding Negativity
photo by Renee Cabatic
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Sunday, June 21, 2020

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

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Being that tree

He just wouldn't have blossomed in his own natural way if I had tried to make him be some sort of tree he wasn't. Trees grow from their seed. Acorns grow oak trees. Apple seeds grow apple trees. And sometimes parents think that by some sort of pruning, and you know, shaping, that they can change who their child is. But that's not being a good parent any more than planting trees and then not watering them, or letting the cat scratch them up, or whatever, is being a good arborist.

It's good to give them what they need, but to try to change them by withholding or shaming doesn't work any better for a child than it does for a tree.

SandraDodd.com/interviews/extras
SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Ester Siroky
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