1. We successfully moved to the countryside, except that we can't unpack because the bedrooms aren't built yet. Children are sleeping in the dining room and the living room and the sewing room because those are the rooms that have doors, the playroom and library are unstructured holes, and the music room is a labyrinth made of cardboard.
2. Despite living out of, and on top of, boxes, we have dug a creek and adopted our first wooly rabbit for yarn production.
3. We have spent a lot of time looking at screens, because looking around at the boxes is pretty painful.
4. The boys took their end-of-year tests and scores post-high-school in everything except that one boy scored at grade level in sentence composition, which is especially weird because they always did awesomely at that before.
5. One of the children found wild black raspberries on our land, in three different places. Other exciting finds have included two whole snake skins, a slippery elm tree (because they're good for making rope), several bird nests, the name of the river around the block, and a bush in which rabbits are raising bunnies.
6. All of these small things -- figuring out what birds make what sound, seeing the hundreds of fireflies in the field every night -- are astonishingly satisfying. I half expected to regret moving out of the city, or at least be annoyed by bugs and scared by rodents like I was last time I lived in the country. Nope. Turns out I have grown up since then, and I have no regrets or qualms or misgivings at all. This was the right thing to do.
7. I gave up on the 1000 Hours Outdoors Challenge because I couldn't keep track. All of the children are outside so often, in and out grabbing things, running off to adventures, it seems like it would be easier to chart what they come inside for than how often they run back out.
8. Since we moved here, the dog has become a bundle of pure bliss. I have never seen any creature so happy so often.
2. Despite living out of, and on top of, boxes, we have dug a creek and adopted our first wooly rabbit for yarn production.
3. We have spent a lot of time looking at screens, because looking around at the boxes is pretty painful.
4. The boys took their end-of-year tests and scores post-high-school in everything except that one boy scored at grade level in sentence composition, which is especially weird because they always did awesomely at that before.
5. One of the children found wild black raspberries on our land, in three different places. Other exciting finds have included two whole snake skins, a slippery elm tree (because they're good for making rope), several bird nests, the name of the river around the block, and a bush in which rabbits are raising bunnies.
6. All of these small things -- figuring out what birds make what sound, seeing the hundreds of fireflies in the field every night -- are astonishingly satisfying. I half expected to regret moving out of the city, or at least be annoyed by bugs and scared by rodents like I was last time I lived in the country. Nope. Turns out I have grown up since then, and I have no regrets or qualms or misgivings at all. This was the right thing to do.
7. I gave up on the 1000 Hours Outdoors Challenge because I couldn't keep track. All of the children are outside so often, in and out grabbing things, running off to adventures, it seems like it would be easier to chart what they come inside for than how often they run back out.
8. Since we moved here, the dog has become a bundle of pure bliss. I have never seen any creature so happy so often.