Signs of Spring

Spring has finally begun to spring in Portland. There is talk of chickens everywhere! We went to a tuplip festival, and our garden has been completely transformed into an urban homestead. I will post pictures of that soon, but am still plagued with a few technical difficulties. There do still seem to be a lot of uncertainities in the air, the recession is definitely impacting Portland, but when the sun comes out after all those months of "liquid sunshine" and we all get our much needed doses of vitamin D, everyone's mood changes.

I am also uplifted by other things. I am taking a class with Geoffrey and Nathaniel in Nonviolent Communication with Children. I love this class! I can not really get enough of it. I can't say that I have perfected it, epsecially in some of those more heated moments, but it does give me another perspective and way of looking at things, and a different way of approaching other family members in the house. In fact, it has given me a whole new set of tools for communicating with many people at Mountain Valley as well as at home. It is continuing to shift my thinking in terms of how I want to raise Malcolm, and educate him.

I am really open to a lot of possible futures for Mountain Valley, but it would be great if it became a charter school and then it would really be a special place for kidsof multiple ages where we could really venture out into the city and other parts of the wide wide world to learn about all sorts of things.

I am also learning a lot more about permaculture, simple living, and many other things. I am just dying to dive into all of these inter-connected areas and recreate myself and create the world with Malcolm and my family. I have been saying lately that what I really want to do is to make stuff, grow stuff, and create stuff. Malcolm is done baking pumpkin bread with his Uncle. I got to go-bathtime.