Pleasant associations

Finding ways not to be grumpy about dishes is a good model and practice field for other choices in life.

We get our dishes from thrift stores, mostly. If one of them bugs me, it can go back to the thrift store.

Sometimes when a mom is really frustrated with doing the dishes, it can help to get rid of dishes with bad memories and connections, or put them in storage for a while. Happy, fun dishes with pleasant associations are easier to wash.

SandraDodd.com/dishes
photo by Gail Higgins

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Parts or versions of the text above have appeared in this blog five times before. It's simple, but people forget.

Adult decisions

When a young adult has been making real decisions for years, and what their parents want is to help them think clearly and to make careful decisions based on the preferences and beliefs of the young person himself, the same old world looks very different.

Young Adults: Partners
photo by Janine

Fuel and downtime

Connie/Otherstar wrote:

Whenever we go out, I make sure that we have lots of foods available so they don't get hungry. I watch for signs of being tired because I know that when my girls get tired, they seem to lose the ability to communicate. Letting them get overtired or over-hungry and then expecting them to communicate with you and negotiate with you isn't appropriate. For that matter, it isn't good for adults.

There have been times that we have gone out and lost track of time and we have all ended up grumpy and hungry. My husband and I will stop and get food for us all. Until everybody is fed, we don't address anything. After we all eat, then we may talk. Usually, feeding everybody eliminates the problems though.

—Connie (Otherstar)

There is more. It was not easy to choose a small part
of the longer writing at Healing Presence
photo by Sarah S.

Choices add up

Small moments of peace and calm can add up to contentment. Gratitude and acceptance contribute to satisfaction. Having a warm home isn't an absolute, and it's not magic. It's the accumulation of positive choices that create a nest for humans (and their significant animal others).

SandraDodd.com/nest
photo by Roya Dedeaux

Peace and confidence

"If you answer every question with honesty you never have to be nervous about the next question because you already know the answer. Take the chance of being uncomfortable for those few minutes of honesty. It's worth the discomfort for the peace and confidence and integrity it will build in you."

—Deb Lewis

SandraDodd.com/integrity
photo by Belinda Dutch

Calmly confident

Stay at the playground. Play with sand and water. Find seeds. Sit in the shade, and in the sun. Set ice in the shade and in the sun. Write with ice on a sunny sidewalk. If there's a brass plaque at the park you can set a piece of ice on it when it's hot and get the letters in reverse, melted into the ice. Don't talk about WHY those things happen unless the kids ask. Just let it happen. They'll figure it out.

Once they get the hang of figuring those things out, they'll be able to figure out harder things. If they practice on cheap and easy stuff (ice is great—in the bathtub for floaty-toys, crushed ice for snacks...), they'll be calmly confident about figuring out increasingly harder things.

SandraDodd.com/substance
photo by Nina Haley

Richly and joyfully

Unschoolers don't "just live." They live large. They live expansively, and richly and joyfully. Those are the things that make it work.

SandraDodd.com/quotes
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp