It is now a full week into October, and we are still chipping away at our end of summer to-do list. I put little checkmarks (✓) next to each of the projects we’ve completed so you can see how unsatisfying our progress has been. Last month’s wildfire evacuations and subsequent period of decompression swiped almost the entire month of September out from under our feet.
So now it’s a matter of figuring out how to proceed in a way that is more sustainable in terms of our time, energy, and our budget, and I’m finding it all very tricky to manage. In some cases, we just have to settle for things not being done, which is a hard pill to swallow for both of us, but the forecast says rain is coming next weekend with no end in sight, and Matt is running low on PTO, so it’s time to switch our focus for the new season. That’s not to say we won’t get the list done, but we have to slow down.
As of this year, my oldest child is kindergarten age, and although we’ve been doing a few alphabet lessons here and there, I think we will all benefit from more structure in our days. I actually have a couple curriculum-type things stashed away that I’ve been waiting to crack into. I’m planning to sift through it and come up with some lesson plans starting next Monday.
I won’t say the idea of homeschooling doesn’t intimidate me a little. From what I can tell, it requires just as much (if not more) discipline on the part of the parent(s) as it does for the student, but there are certain things about it that I already love, such as the ability to dictate our own schedule. Most public school students in the state of Oregon started school (from home due to Covid-19) early last month, but I see our start and end dates as flexible and heavily influenced by the weather.
Finally, if you didn’t catch it, I posted a little video on YouTube that cobbles together our footage of the wildfire evacuations. I wish we’d taken the time to capture more video, but it was a difficult, exhausting thing to go through, so I’m grateful we have what we have. Take a look:
Hi Lindsay, Bex here from @thelittlehome.oz on Instagram. I left Instagram a few months ago so it’s wonderful to keep in touch here and see what you’ve been up to! I’m so glad your property wasn’t heavily affected by the bushfires, we’re so happy for all the spring rain we’ve got here and hoping for the rainy summer they’re telling us about to keep the bushfires minimal and at bay. It’s amazing to see how much you guys have done in such a short period of time! The magic of autumn/winter on the land is the necessity to slow down, it’ll be really interesting to see how your experience of the seasons changes now! I’m currently 14 weeks pregnant with our first, a little boy due mid April, so I feel like with spring weather really coming in now for us here in the summer hemisphere the first trimester fog of nausea and fatigue is starting to lift and I’m spending more time outside, in the garden and moving into the faster paced life of spring/summer. We’ve been working on lots of projects in the tiny house, moving things around and making things as baby-appropriate as possible. How is your house looking? Was it pretty ready to live in when you moved or will you switch to house tasks now the weathers turning for you guys?
With love,
Bex xx
Long time no talk! It’s good to hear from you again, and congratulations on the little one on the way! So excited for you guys.
I would say the house is mostly functional. We have run into a couple problems we’ve already had to deal with, and we have a bathroom we need to gut because the subfloor is rotten, but there’s a second functional bathroom, so we can take our time. Most of the changes we want to make on the interior of the home are aesthetic. We don’t have a gameplan for tackling it yet because we still have so much to do outside, but it’s ok. We’ll get to it eventually.
Are you still doing YouTube videos these days? I’d love to follow along if you are.