Update for Farm and Homeschooling

This week is crammed packed with peaches. Chad graduated from his year long training. Isaac started dancing. Holly began her yearly peach cleanse.......ha! We had farm visitors two of the days, picked berries. Lily caught her first all on her own fish. Staying busy on the farm!

Peach Time Maddness......

I got the call that the peaches are in yesterday morning. That means all of my blogging time has been getting peaches, getting supplies for canning peaches, cleaning equipment to can peaches.......eating peaches. You get the idea.

Expect a who slew of peach recipes and peach talk over the next week. Ha!

Until then check out this really cool local Iowa food blog, Ally's Sweet and Savory Eats!

Look who's got her first guest post? That's right! Me!

It Is Too Late, I'm Too Old

Or.....it is never too late.

Another part of my struggle with just about everything I want to do is that I was a child prodigy. When a child prodigy grows up, she's just a really smart and (slightly?) annoying adult with the whispered memory of having been special and held apart for admiration. A 14 year old surgeon is amazing, but that same kid grows up and a 40 year old surgeon is not notable. The same goes for a child poet. I had talent, it was a gift, but that success is talent nurtured and matured and I did not do that, I walked away.

It is not too late for me to pick the pen back up. I may have to back track a bit and practice, but I can do it. Too often we are told that if you don't start something when you are a child, then it is too late. Guess what folks.....an adult CAN learn a second language, can learn to read music and play an instrument, can learn new skills. It will still take 10,000 hours to get good at it. That's the same as a child, but as an adult we are more mindful of those hours. As an adult we are more critical of mistakes, more sensitive to humiliation. 

10,000 hours is a lot of dedication. 20,000 hours and you can be amazing. It is easier to dedicate the hours if you are immersed in it, like a language in a new place you are living. It is easier to dedicate the hours if your parents are paying for lessons. It is like breathing if you really, really love what you are doing.

Find that thing. Start logging in the hours. If you are 36 (like me) and say you might live to 85......That's a whole lotta good years to master something.

My Aunt Deedle is my inspiration for this. She never let anyone tell her she couldn't do something. At 35 she bought a farm, not previous experience. Soon after she became a Realtor. She was a wife and partner to my uncle, who needed a quiet bit of care physically when he wasn't being amazing. When he got really sick, they packed up and moved across country and bought a rural plantation in Virginia. When he died, she packed up again and moved to Texas, bought a bed and breakfast, and took an African safari cruise and tour to South Africa. She was a gun totin', State Fair baking, Renaissance crafting, amazing woman. She's in her 70's and still running at it.

In fact, the happiest women I know are much older than me, always trying new things, learning new skills, and running at the target of life. From that I have learned, it is never too late. In fact, my 30's are just waiting in line for that ultimate push into really living fully.

Go. Get some of that cake. If there is no cake in the house, it is time to learn to bake.

Why I Stopped Writing- Scooping the Guts Out

Recently, there has been a really public feud between two of the leaders in the unschooling movement. It is really quite yucky what one of them is doing to the other publicly, namely, starting a facebook page to collect and categorise any failing there might be of the other.

I don't care how ugly the mistake one made, creating a facebook page to stir hatred and "collect" failings eclipses that by hundreds of millions of times. While I had been disappointed and sad for one, now my view of the other is forever ruined- not because of her work or home life, but because of how creating and managing a facebook hate page speaks of her core being. Yucky.

*Dayna, rock on. People make mistakes. I am so sorry that folks have been targeting you for public humiliation and I hope that you and your family come through this strong and beautiful.

The whole situation got me thinking about how risky going public is. My blog, the facebook pages, even my profile are now public. I have made mistakes. I can't even claim that they are all in my past. I have projects that failed too. Restore-o-Rama 2005 comes to mind. Huge horrible expensive failure. Simply Food the blog is another, personality clashes led to that shutting down. Maybe I could have saved it, maybe I could reboot it, maybes haunt me. That was a huge failing. A project not seen to its end, poorly handled. Will that come back to haunt me? Even though apologies have been made for my part directly to those actually involved?

I am not perfect. I burn dinner. I yell at my kids when they fight all day, though less and less now that I know that it leads to more days of constant fighting. I forget to email folks back. I turn off my phone. I cry. I dislike people. I say the wrong thing. I say the truth at the wrong time. I say nothing when I should be throwing punches. I am not perfect. I am not always happy.

I fake it.

When all of my failings start weighing so heavy on me that I can't get up off the floor, I fake it. I get up, get dressed, I list out things I am grateful for. I send out love messages to friends and strangers. *Love messages are encouragements, what I love about you notes. I turn up the music and I dance while doing dishes. I make my kids laugh. I eat two desserts before breakfast. I put extra maple syrup in my coffee. I go through the motions of what I would be doing happy, and soon enough the day turns to real happy. Smiles are contagious.

Think about that. I have been criticised as being a phoney, which cuts to my core because I start out each day faking it. Am I a fake? I am genuinely trying to move towards joy, create a joyful beautiful life for my children. I don't lie, they know that I am sad or angry, they know I am trying hard to cross that gorge to the other side.

This paralyses my writing too. I sit in a room full of peers and feel like I don't belong. When I open my mouth, I sound like a fan girl. Then I go home and cry because I can't cut it. I am really having a hard time with this mental shift, the one from I am a crappy wanna be poet in freshman level comp classes to....I've been a college professor for 8 years, have a multi disciplinary masters degree, and published writing.

That is the muck I am stuck in. This is risky. The fear is palpable. Does this mean it is worth doing or is the fear cautionary to make me step back and re-evaluate?  What is the foot hold of this fear that keeps me sitting in the pasture making wildflower hair adornments instead of following the path that calls to me? These are the guts of the problem. This is what needs scooping out and fed to the chickens.