It's happening...

A few months ago when we started talking really seriously about unschooling I looked at this blog and thought - okay, I don't really want this blog to just turn into another unschooling blog.  This is a blog about our family!  And our fun trips!  And our exploring!  And and...

Then I realized - you know, YESTERDAY, that this has probably been an unschooling blog in disguise all along.

And now it just makes more sense.

I'm struggling with changing the little description under the title - not sure what I want to say there.  I don't feel like what is says totally fits anymore, but time will tell.

When it comes to fitness - I'm lacking hugely in that department.  I'm just not as motivated as I thought I would be right now.  I think about going out to run and then I think about my other choices as far as what to do with my time and the other choices usually win out. 

The thing is, I really do miss running, so I'm going to have to reassess a little.

Last night at The Refinery (our church) we talked about living with intention.

This is something that keeps coming up in my life from various sources.

It started in college when I met with a small group in the woods regularly and we had our very own little Dead Poets' Society and we read our stuff and shared our lives and talked about "living deliberately" and "suck[ing] out all the marrow of life".  We talked about what that meant: to live deliberately.  Some of us seemed to take to it more easily than others.  My friend, Pete has always seemed one who takes to living deliberately (with intention) naturally.  I attribute this to his partial upbringing in Bolivia and his ability to look at the world through a different lens.  I am too often stuck in my paradigms.  They're stubborn things when you're trying to shift them.

With unschooling, living with intention becomes a bit more necessary - at least with our version of unschooling (which I'll probably address in various future posts) - and of course fitting exercise into all of that marrow sucking requires intent.  Deliberation.  I must decide and follow through.

Michael and I are both notoriously bad at follow-through.

I'm not proud of that fact.  It's just who we are and both of us are working hard to change it.  It's funny because I'm pretty sure neither of us had that issue really before we got married, but somehow, together, that's something that's cropped up in our marriage and our family and our outside relationships. 

Both of us want to live with more intention.

Both of us want to do fewer things better.

If we just weren't so darn well-rounded!

It's funny.  Having your kids not be well-rounded is a huge criticism of unschooling.  I think it's funny because I watch Michael, who can literally do anything, as he struggles to find a place in the work-force.

He has a job, but it's JUST a job.  And getting it was like pulling teeth (sorry for the over-used metaphor, but it fits).  He is an excellent musician, he has a degree in technical theatre and one in mathematics.  He can teach.  He can do physics.  He can fix things.  He can build things.  He can sing.  He can act.  He can dance.  He can do high level mathematics.  He's brilliant. 

But no one wants someone to work for them who can do a little bit of everything.  People want employees who are VERY good at one thing.

Neither of us really know how to hone a particular skill.  We both know what it takes - practice and perseverance and time.  Good teachers and good faith effort on a regular basis.  But neither of us seem to be able to fit things in.  I'd like to hone my violin skills - and also my painting skills and my writing skills and my acting skills and my singing skills and the LIST GOES ON.  I haven't found a real focus.  It's been hard my whole life - to focus on one thing or even a few things.  I know that I have a variety of interests, but I'm trying to be more deliberate in the things on which I spend my precious little time.

I find myself mourning the fact that I agreed to direct a play about which I admit I am not very passionate this summer.  It will be a fine play.  I have a fine staff assembled.  I am talented at directing.  I am sure it will be fine.  The problem is that it will take a LOT of time and energy on which I could be spending on other things that I have made priorities. 

Michael and I have also both been working on cutting things out of our lives.  Making lists of priorities and then ditching the things that don't make the cut.

Unfortunately my things that didn't make the cut are things I consider current obligations.

But what IS an obligation?  It's really just something that will upset people if you drop the ball on it or quit before you said you would.

I was taught that this is something very important - not to upset people, to put them first - to follow through on a task.  So do I quit these tasks in order to re-order my life, or do I stick it out for the other people?

I get mixed reviews on this.

Generally, the American populous says - screw them all and live for yourself.

I'm not sure that's always right.

In fact - I'm certain that it isn't always right.

So - I will be completing my term in one of those obligations and telling the head that I will not continue in my current capacity.  That will be one thing.

For the other, I still haven't decided my true feelings on the matter, and so it's up in the air.

So - I suppose for now it's time to end this disjointed and somewhat cryptic post.  My apologies for the rambling.  Sometimes this is a necessary evil.