Hope and joy

There are no guarantees, but we can always do a little better.

Live in hope and joy, not in fear and avoidance.

SandraDodd.com/guarantees
photo by Elaine Santana

Can laundry be fun?

Any tiny moment can be enjoyed: the feel of warm running water when you wash your hands...

...Can laundry be fun? If you have to do laundry and you choose NOT to enjoy it, an hour or more of your precious hours on earth have been wasted. Can looking at your child bring you joy even when he needs a bath and has lost a shoe and hasn't lived up to some expectation that only exists in your mind? If not, a paradigm shift could help you both.

"Laundry is Love" (a new page!)
The quote above is on the new page, though it is from
Rejecting a Pre-Packaged Life (SandraDodd.com/joy)

photo by Cathy Koetsier

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

Today is now

Today can't be made better tomorrow.

Today you will make choices. Those choices will affect more lives than your own.

Be a good person to be a good parent
photo by Gail Higgins
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Esoteric and foofy? Why?

Even in the long term, unschooling is not about the completion of a project at all. It’s about becoming the sort of people who see and appreciate and trust that learning can happen. And who can travel with children, not just drag them along or push them along, but who can travel with children along those interesting paths together not until you get there, but indefinitely.

And for beginning unschoolers that sounds also a little esoteric, a little foofy. And not solid. They want to know what do I do when the kids wake up in the morning? So, the beginning information is very often, “What do I do?” But the information that will get people from the beginning to the intermediate is why. "Why do we do this?"

Changes in Parents
photo by Ester Siroky

The quote is from a podcast episode of Pam Laricchia interviewing me.
I tweaked the quote just slightly, capitalizing "even"
and using "unschooling" rather than "it."

I've used this quote before, but used better titles:

2017: Travel interesting paths

2018: "Why do we do this?" (with the same photo, even)

One thing to feel blessed about

"When I'm feeling out of sorts and crushed by the world, all it takes is finding one thing to feel blessed about to start thinking in terms of abundance rather than lack, of being inspired instead of beaten down."

—Jenny Cyphers

Wonder and Awe
photo by Sandra Dodd

First times and last times

I saw this little carousel at a car boot sale in Taplow, west of London.

Thinking of little children, the reminder "say yes when you can," and "don't underestimate the joy a small thing can bring a child."

For adults, the construction and engineering (of a fold-out trailer with a ride) and the place-in-time aspects of anything you might see could be worth a second look, another thought.

You never know which time is the last time you'll have seen something, or had a chance to do something.

SandraDodd.com/wonder
photo by Sandra Dodd

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a moment, May 26, 2013