Journey North Mystery Class ~ Starts Monday!

Adrienne and I are looking forward to doing this project again! We did it last year and you can see all the related posts by clicking HERE . Even though she is now attending public school, this is one of the projects that she has been asking for, reminding me since Christmas, wanting to make sure we didn't miss it!

Journey North Mystery Class is a great project that includes many interesting educational activities. We learned about sunlight and the seasons, latitude and longitude, charting our weekly sunrise/sunset data on charts, and calculating daylight hours. Our favourite part was doing research using the interdisciplinary clues towards the end of the project, trying to find out the location of each of the mystery classes. Sometimes the clues were food related, or history, politics, culture...very interesting! All while trying to match up our answers with the latitude and longitude coordinates that we had come up with!

You can visit Journey North website to learn more about the Mystery Class and how to partcipate in this project here. If you are participating, leave a comment at the end of this post. It can be fun comparing notes!

The project starts this Monday, February 2 and ends on May 8 when the Mystery Sites are revealed.

Book Sharing Monday

The Empty Pot by Demi is a wonderful story about honesty. We have read it before but enjoyed it again this morning, before Andre and Adrienne ran off to school. Here is a small part:



"Who would his successor be? And how would the Emperor choose? Because the Emperor loved flowers so much, he decided to let the flowers choose."

We have enjoyed many of Demi's books, I would highly recommend them!

Secret #3 ~ Following your fascinations

This week's secret is so important. Following your fascinations. Taking risks. Realizing what might be holding you back (inner patriarch). This chapter was so inspiring again, and I have to mention that I really find the quotes in the margins as inspiring as the text. My favourite this week was from Dolly Parton (of all people?!):


"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."


Now for the questions of the week from the book group:


"What helps you be brave? List anything you'd like to draw on when the journey gets tough or scary, including what has worked for you in the past."

What helps me be brave is knowing that my family is there for me, no matter what the outcome is of my adventure. Another thing that helps me is looking back at the challenges that I have gone through in the past.

When things get confusing or stressful, what has helped me in the past is to take a couple of hours by myself and go somewhere. It could be a walk or bike ride by the lake, or a drive in the country, or even spending time in a book store or at the library. Many times I bring my camera with me. I took this photo on a de-stressing walk. I always come back feeling refreshed, fresh air and taking pictures always works for me.


When I have to complete something I have a difficult time with, I tend to think of how good I will feel when it's done. During NaNoWriMo last November, there were many days when it was difficult, but I just kept thinking of how great it would feel to know that I finished, that I wrote 50 000 words!

"This week I'd like to offer you the challenge of taking one brave step towards your dreams"

This week I opened an etsy store, more for me than for profit. I started with a couple of my photographs and will add some fabric creations soon. It is something I have been thinking about for a few months, but finally decided to take the leap this week.
My other brave step that I want to take is to read the book I wrote last November. I did complete the NaNoWriMo challenge, but once I was finished, I didn't want to read what I wrote...not sure why, but now I will take that brave step and see what I wrote!

My 999 book list ~ a work in progress!

9 books in 9 categories for 2009.

I first saw this idea here in 2008, last summer, and never got around to putting my list together. This year I am more prepared. I am still missing quite a few but I think it is a good start anyway. The list is for the entire year, and mostly for me, besides the one category called "read aloud". I let the kids pick those books, straight from our shelves.

I added the initials of the book clubs next to the selection related to them (SM is for Sound Mind, Sound Mom Club; WRL for the Well-Read Ladies, NC for Next Chapter).

Here are my selections so far:

Life/Family

• 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families by Covey (SM)
• For Women Only by Feldhahn (SM)
• Last Child in the Woods by (SM)
• The Creative Family (SM)
• Playful Parenting by Cohen (SM)
• Above All, Be Kind by Weil (SM)
• Your Money or Your Life by Dominguez (SM)
• It's All Too Much by Walsh (SM)

Food/Earth

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
• 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew

Creativity

• Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol
• 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail Meekin (NC)
• Taking Flight: Inspiration And Techniques To Give Your Creative Spirit Wings by Kelly Rae
• Patchwork + Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson
• Amy Butler's In Stitches: More Than 25 Simple and Stylish Sewing Projects
• Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners by Aimee Ray
• Amy Butler's Midwest Modern: A Fresh Design Spirit for the Modern Lifestyle
  

Classics

• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Biographies/History

• Dewey by V. Myron
• Lust for Life by Irving Stone
• The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (WRL)

Novels

• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky
• Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• something by Jodi Picoult (any suggestions?)
• First Light by C. Baxter
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (WRL)

Read Aloud

• One Thousand and One Arabian Nights
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry
• The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
• The People of Sparks By Jeanne Duprau

Youth Novels

• Eldest
• Brisingr

??? (I haven't decided what other category to pick)

6 days of photos ~ shutter sisters

This week seemed to fly by for me! I have enjoyed the photo assignment of trying to find something colourful, cozy, or that makes me smile every day. Here are the photos from this past week that fit those categories:

I