Hello, Hello! I know it’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, but I wanted to share something very special with you today! Don’t worry, it’s not a course or anything like that! Cue the relieved sighs.
A very, very special lady that is near and dear to my heart is sharing a Pagan children’s book she’s written, and I wanted to tell you about it. It’s pretty difficult to find specifically Pagan kids books so, with a little witchling myself, I was pretty interested in her book, Stardust.
It’s based on a song we sing on Wednesday nights during our Circle, Enchantica (every Wednesday night at 6pm CST on FB) and is a beautiful and wonderful creation story. The illustrations are cute and cartoony, perfect for kids, and were created by rising artist, John Lollar!
As Ginger has written herself: “This is the enchanting story of Creation as the Little Goddess sits in the Time Before Time, in the Dark Before Dark. She holds out her hand and there is only one tiny, sparkling mote of Stardust! With illustrations that are completely enchanting, generations of children will cherish this book and the timeless story it tells! Perfect for parents to read at bedtime – and great for kids to read on their own, too!”
I hope you enjoy Stardust as much as we are going to! I can’t wait to add it to our bookshelf and our rotation of bedtime stories! 🙂
Snuggs with my kittay on a bad health day. Push through and keep moving. Rest when you need it. There is nothing shameful in knowing when you can’t go any further.
Hello, hello, everyone! Wow, this has been one calamity after crisis after insanity lately, hasn’t it? I won’t lie, it has been a struggle. For a lot of people all over the world. I’m hearing now of the spread of COVID to places like Sweden and Russia, of the hunger and despair that are running rampant. There have been some really beautiful shows of humanity lately too though and it’s those that I try to really hold to as much as possible.
I haven’t been writing as much lately. Some of you may know that I recently took my small potted planting style and expanded it into a full scale ‘tiny farm’ in my backyard. We’re lucky enough to have a spacious, fenced yard that has plenty of room for growing (though terribly clay soil). It’s taken up a great bulk of my time getting the beds established and seeds started while also giving Little Maxwell the attention and educations she deserves.
But it’s been so rewarding.
Playing with the VR animals on Google. Little Maxwell had a blast!
I feel good, even when I’m tired out from digging up beds and I even managed to DIY an old, unused dog run into a swing for Little Maxwell that she has been entirely in love with. I’ve been delivering books to houses with kids along my street, leaving them in their mailboxes to give them something to do (all sanitized, of course!). They can leave the old book when they’re done to trade it in for a new one or leave a different book of their own if they like it! Again, all sanitized before they come in the house!
Little Maxwell and I have spent our days in the yard, reading more both together and separately. I’ve picked up a really interesting book recently called Shamanism As A Spiritual Practice For Daily Life by Tom Cowan (a pretty ironic name if you ask me). I keep busy. I do what I can for my family when I can. I help my neighbors as much as I can where possible. That’s how we’re getting by in this time.
This flatbread turned out so moist and soft! Yuuuummmm!
A few of my nighbors and I have begun to trade one another for things we may need. Eggs for a blackberry bushling. Spare wire fencing for a dozen farm-laid eggs. Homemade bread for a pumpkin plant. All while keeping our distance, naturally, but it’s really amazed me how things like this just naturally developed.
I don’t really know what I have coming down the pipeline right now. My head is in a bit of a weird place and my heart is somewhere unknown. I’ve been having trouble finding that same passion for things that I usually have and it’s been kind of devastating, if I’m honest. So I’ve been reading a lot. I’ve taken up Minecraft a bit more lately too and that’s something i want to write a little more on soon. Talk about extra cool stuff.
But my heart has just been in a strange place and I don’t know how to find my passion again. Perhaps some meditation. Perhaps some prayer or even more exercise. Either way, I’ll bring you along for the ride!
Where are you emotionally right now? How are you feeling? How is this nightmare affecting you and how do you get through your toughest days? Give me some tips!
Emergency homeschooling? Extended spring break? Wondering if you can expel, suspend, or transfer your child out of your class? I mean, you’re just the parent, right? Aren’t there other people who don’t get paid enough to deal with this craziness during the day?
But seriously, we are all prone to restless bouts cabin-fever and our children? Especially so. They are, after all, tiny whirling energy tornadoes shoved inside of skin suits. They already have a surplus of energy but being trapped in the house with nothing to distract them but screens and anxious adults? You’re just asking for them, you, or both to have a nervous breakdown. The flood of fear filling our homes and our social media pages affects them too. They feel it too but have years, maybe decades, less emotional development to cope with it.
So what can we do?
Have no fear! We have arrived here today with a few things that you can do that we’ve been doing in our own home this week! Currently this is day three of isolation for us but I prepared some things to keep us occupied and learning throughout our time inside.
Quarantined? A great time to pull out some Legos, put some music on and have a family Lego night! If you have rather small ones, placing the Legos on a sheet pan or towel like this is a good way to help keep those little pieces from rolling or bouncing away as much! Very small ones can use the larger Duplo blocks or you can just weed out any of the very small pieces from the Legos they are given to play with.
This is our book table! Each day, Little Maxwell picks out two books: one for our “school book”, like the alphabet books for example, and another “just for fun book”. She really loves the Perlorian Cats books even though they’re older than I am! But that’s okay. They were my favorite when I was her age too! So now it’s something special we share together. Usually we end up checking out another book from the library on the Overdrive app as well, usually on whatever comes up that catches our interest during the day or fits our nature school theme.
Plant some seeds! These are cold weather peas that we planted half in our garden and half in pots inside. Kids love the fun of planting a seed and then watching it grow over the weeks until at last they can snap that first delicious victory off of the vine and savor it! A fair bit of advice though: Don’t plant anything that you’re not going to want to eat. Try to only plant things that you know your family is going to enjoy. Otherwise, be it flower, herb or vegetable, what’s the point?Tea party time! This can be especially fun as a before bed treat when you use sleepy time tea. Not only does it have a great taste but my nephews and daughter all seem to enjoy it! Yes, that’s right. Even the boys. You can even incorporate a nice bedtime story while everyone is enjoying their tea!
These are just a few things that you can do to help your kids from losing their marbles and transforming from your sweet boys and girls to agents of hell intend on your doom and immediate demise. They are all also wonderful ways to really spend some quality family time together. Light some candles and let the hygge commence!
Let me know down below what you’re doing to beat the Corona quarantine blues!
Libby is a companion app for the previously reviewed Overdrive library app, the both of which are put out by Overdrive Inc, a subsidiary of Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten. Overdrive Inc also developed a book and audio book app specifically for schools called Sora that I will also be reviewing here soon! The three apps are used to connect library accounts and read or listen to books and magazines, watch videos and checkout resources from libraries where you hold an account, completely on the go! The best part? No late fees! Materials are removed automatically from your account and you even have the option to renew materials from the app as well! I’m pretty interested in checking out Sora tomorrow!
For today, however, we go to Libby.
It’s cute. That seems to be the prevailing commentary about it. I’ve had a local librarian comment when asked about it that Libby was user friendly and it’s interface is more simple. That it was cute, and to their credit, it is cute. Regrettably, that’s about the extent of It’s noteworthiness. My experience was quite the opposite of user-friendly. I found it to be very buggy whether on my Chromebook or on mobile. I can’t speak to how the iOS version is, but the Android version that I used was glitchy and frustrating. Granted, this is what I have to say about it as far as the end of 2019. I am certainly open to re-reviewing it in the future should these issues be addressed.
This list of issues and my thoughts on the app I do plan to send to the development team and I have refrained from leaving a starred review in hopes that these bugs will be fixed and I can review it again in the future. I had high hopes for Libby because I love and use the Overdrive app so much.
There isn’t a single day that goes by that I’m not using it for personal reading/listening or using it for our homeschool. I love that I can link my library accounts for two different local libraries as well as the account we have with the San Bernardino public library in California. We can check out books from all three libraries on a single app and it’s wonderful! I only wish I could say the same for the Libby app.
Granted, the bugs one person faces may not necessarily be an issue for another. Some apps can face similar issues if internet connection is sketchy or if the app is behind on an update, etc. I will be going into my review of the Sora app with an open and optimistic mind and that’s exactly what I hope you will do with Libby! If you face a similar experience as I did then leave feedback! The developers for an app can only fix issues that their users know about after all!
Little Journeys Everywhere 