A very LATE newsflash

I just NOW realized that I never let the few subscribers to this blog know that we have MOVED! Months ago!

Our active blogs can be found here:

we live creatively: www.welivecreatively.wordpress.com

and my pin-up blog:

www.pinupfaerie.wordpress.com

Today

Blogged by Skipper J. Parsley

This morning when Levi woke up, he had a pleasant look on his face. I initiated the following exchange:

 Skipper: “What is it?”

Levi: “I am glad it is today.”

Skipper: “Today?”

Levi: “Yes.”

Skipper: “What is it about today?”

Levi: “I donno, it is just today.”

Skipper: “What about tomorrow?”

Levi: “No, just today.”

Skipper: “What about yesterday?”

Levi: “No, just today.”

 In most cases, changes in life can present challenges that force us to work through our fears related to those changes. I have recently followed through on some of these life changing decisions. I am happy to have made these changes; however, I now have to renew my mind daily (and most of the time multiple times a daily) to flush away anxieties related to my recent decisions. Levi’s enjoyment of today is a good reflection point to remind me to live for today and that yesterday and tomorrow is for another time.

 Does this mean that yesterday and tomorrow have no value? Yesterday holds the experiences that created today and when blended with dreams, they help shape tomorrow. Levi talks with excitement on the dreams of tomorrow, but without any anxiety.

 One of my biggest excitements is helping others develop their plans for tomorrow. Visualizing this act is one of the ways that renew my mind.

 “Do not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will take care of itself.”

But now that I’m a BAD Christian….

When I was a “good christian”  I thought worshiping God was done at church.   But now that I am a “bad christian”  I find myself thanking God for His goodness. And thanking him for those precious moments I witness.  None of this is done inside a physical church.   When I was a good christian, we taught Sunday school classes. Everybody knew who we were at church and it made us feel good. We were being used by God to serve God. Weren’t we sweet?   But now that I am a bad christian,  and since I don’t go to church all that often, nobody sees the things we do. We don’t have an audience to witness and applause us when we go out of our way for someone,invest time and energy into people, etc.   When I was a good christian, I thought I had a God-given right to tell people when they were wrong. It was OK that I didn’t know their circumstance — they were just wrong, and I was going to tell them. If they had a problem with that. I brushed it off as “spiritual warfare”. I was being attacked because I was standing up for righteousness.   But now that I am a bad Christian, I realize I was being a jerk. It wasn’t “spiritual warfare” or persecution. It was simply people responding to my crass rudeness. Reaping what I sowed, if you want to get scriptural.   When I was a good Christian, I didn’t drink.   But now that I am a bad christian, I do like to drink occasionally. I also like to eat. And I see more Christians intoxicating themselves and hurting their bodies with food more then I do an occasional drink. But we won’t go there…   When I was a good Christian, I used the word of God to fight people. To put people in their place.   But now that I am a bad christian, I read the word of God to bring me peace.   When I was a good christian I thought the scripture about “not forsaking the assembling of yourselves” meant you need to go to a physical church at least once a week (more would be better) so you can be around other believers.   Now that I am a bad christian, I believe people should be around other people period –in the public, living and sharing your life.   When I was a good christian I didn’t realize I was identifying myself with religious codes and the local church.   Now that I am a bad christian all of that is rubbish to me. And I don’t want to be identified with any religion or church. Just Jesus. And not the one man created.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Isaiah 5:20

Are you smarter than an 11 year old?

We receive all kinds of questions about our choice to unschool. It amazes me that people have asked the following questions. We decided to let Levi answer.

Q.How are you going to learn to ”wait in line” if you’re not in a structured setting?

 Levi: You just learn by doing it. We stand in line at the bank and at the post office. School is one way to learn how to stand in line, but it isn’t the only way. It’s common sense. When you are at a family reunion, you have to wait in line to get the big pile of mashed potatoes.

Q. What about reading and spelling? Do you feel like you are missing out and not getting the opportunity you need to truly learn how to read and spell?

Levi: No, because I have a phone that I text on all the time and that involves spelling. If I don’t know how to spell a word I am texting, I learn it because it’s a word I want to learn. About the reading, I am obsessed with The Legend of Zelda. I read  The Legend of Zelda. I also read every sign on the road because I am always looking for Asian Martial Arts. And the voices in my head tell me how to read (Laughs/jk)

Q.Do you ever read books?

Levi: Yes! I am always looking for R.A. Salvatore.

Q.Do you feel like your parents “make you read?

Levi: Not really, I read on my own. I feel the need to read. It feeds my imagination.

 Q.If I forced reading on you, how do you think you would feel?

Levi: I think I would despise reading.

 Q.What does the word despise mean to you?

Levi: It means you absolutely hate it, and makes you feel depressed when you’re near it.

 Q.Some parents have good inetentions and feel like they have to make their kids read. How do you feel about this?

 Levi: They should think back when they were a kid and were being forced to do something they didn’t like doing. If the parents let you read on your own, and if they are encouraging parents that help you out with a big word, you’re going to have a kid that will like to read.

 Q.Any other thoughts?

Levi: Puff head Inc coming soon!

Skipper Parsley blogs his thoughts. This is part of an answer he gave during his interview for a University of Phoenix teaching position.

 My wife and I home school our son.  Not only do we home school, we follow a home schooling philosophy popularly called unschooling.  The unschooling and andragogy philosophies have paralleling similarities; however, the biggest difference is on of the basic tenets of the andragogy philosophy.  A basic concept of the andragogy philosophy is that a student needs the life experiences of an adult in most cases.  My wife and I build on the experiences that my son does have and at times, create needed experiences, then we facilitate self-directed learning with our son by focusing on his interests.  We provide materials and tools related to his interests, provide help and guidance as needed while he is navigating through the materials and experimenting with the tools, challenge him to expand his thoughts on the subject through discussions and leading questions, and providing plenty of encouragement and praise throughout the process.

The class that I teach would be more inline with how I teach my son.  I will provide the learning environment that will lead to the course learning objectives.  I will create the learning environment by presenting real life experiences along with a variety of learning sources like textbooks and discussion questions.

The opportunities for creating experiences are limited only by my imagination.  True vacations are great ways to create a learning experience, which is one of the reasons we are selling our house to live in a motorhome; however, creating experiences could be as simple as melting ice in the sink.  You would be amazed at the questions that simple act can generate.

My wife and I sell herbal products are farmers’ markets in the Houston area.  Levi (my son) wanted to get into the action.  He started looking up the herbs that provided the benefits that he desired.  We ordered the herbs, containers, and labels he wanted.  My wife helped him mix the ingredients to make a salve that relieves pain and promotes skin healing.  He named it Warrior’s Blessing and we sell it at the market.

Levi’s experiences because of his interest:
Research methods
Science
Math
Reading
Many business concepts

I do not think online learning needs to be supplemented.  I think online learning actually sharpens communication skills, since we convey our thoughts in a written format.  This is increasingly important in a culture that is leaning more towards telecommuting.  Just because a person increases interaction with others online does not mean that face-to-face interactions end.  Again, to use my son as an example, he is capable of interacting with any age or status group because that is how he lives his life day to day.  He can go to the cafe with this grandfather on Saturday mornings and effectively communicate as well as if he is at the park across the street with the other kids at various ages.

Wanna Be Gypsies

We are now living fulltime in our RV, but have not officially “hit the road”. And we don’t really plan on doing so for about another year. Here is a tiny update of Peace of Parsley’s game plan. It is subject to change any time without any warning. At all.

For the next three months we are work camping out at my parents’ property. For those of you who may not be familiar with what work camping is, it’s a RV spot where you stay for free provided you work there. We are helping keep the acres mowed, picking the garden and helping out any way we can as we stay here rent free. This will give us time in our RV to make sure everything is running properly before launching off to “hit the road”. We have always loved coming to my parents’. Even when we lived in Houston we made our way out here at least once a week. My parents are very warm and welcoming people. It’s a place to take your shoes off and shoot the breeze.

We are now in a place where we can focus on creating money. You can click on the pages of our blog to find out what kind of products and services we offer. We “did away” with our business site since we get the most traffic here.Skipper is still working on his business consulting page, but that should be up very soon! I am considering working part time for either a Thai Massage Center and or a Chiropractic Center. I have 2 massage parties booked for next week. I am really looking forward to working my magic. It’s been awhile since I’ve practiced massage and I miss it.

Shades of Green Dancing

The parrot belonged to my Grandma at one time. Pictures by my Mother-in-Law and the sign is a sweet reminder.

 

 Things have settled down somewhat with moving out of our house and making this quaint RV home. There are still several boxes of “things” that we need to go through and eliminate. Things that are now sitting here in the RV with me as I blog. We thought we already let a ton of things go, but I see that there is still more simplifying that needs to be done. Some of this stuff just won’t fit. To be honest, I’m glad. I have truly gotten to the point of not liking “stuff”. I don’t know what to do with all of these trinkets and doo-dads. I appreciate what they meant at the time I received them, and I still hold the memories of how I felt in my mind, so really it seems that this “stuff” will always be with me and part of me. It will just no longer be a part of my physical space. I am completely content with this. It is very interesting what has taken place in my mind in regards to material possessions. It seems that the more things I get rid of, the more I want to keep things simple. It’s the opposite of accumulating things. It’s a purging. I am not saying having “things” is evil. And I don’t plan on proselytizing simple living and reaching converts to join me on a crusade. I’m pretty smart and I am fully aware that the simple life and what our family is doing isn’t for everyone. But I see how it has become a part of who I am becoming. I am happy to be grasping on to this uncluttered way of life with both hands. I see that I am person who, instead of living to accumulate stuff is instead, a woman who wants to accumulate moments. Real moments. And I believe that you can do both if you have a knack for maintaining a natural mental balance. But for me, when my life was about “stuff” I didn’t really have the vision to see and truly breathe in the moments, the experiences that I think my life is truly suppose to be about. Tomorrow will be another day of eliminating stuff. A little ritual, as I will be kissing those trinkets good-bye while searing the memory of the item in my mind with a mental kiss.  Right now, at this moment, I am able to take in the sounds of the rain greeting and washing our RV and making us aware of a couple of leaks. Thank you, rain. I am watching the different shades of green from the different types of trees dance to the same windy rhythm. I am smelling the vegetarian chili cooking in the slow cooker. And I am feeling ecstatically calm on the inside.  

Change

I’m sitting here in Rio our RV while Skipper is installing recycled wood floors. I’m blogging on my new net book and feeling blissful! And thankful! Some of you may have heard through that wonderful grapevine that we all know as Face Book that Skipper left a very decent job making very nice money to persue his own dreams. I’m going to tell you up front that this blog may be a bit scattered. My mind is all over the place whirling with ideas and where our live have taken us. Two months after we got married (nearly 16 years ago) Skipper, the best friend I have ever had and my love, knew that he wanted to work from home. I shared that same dream. Neither one of us had a clear idea on what we wanted to do as far as a business goes, but we knew that the bottom line was to simply be together. I just realized how much I use the word “simply” in my posts. I’m pretty fond of that word. Anyhow, I won’t get into all of our school and career history here. Suffice it to say, Skipper is now at home working for himself. What does this mean exactly? We have a very varied job description! Here is what our family is doing to create an income to sustain our simple RV life. We are working Farmer’s Markets to sell our herbal sundries. At the Kemah Market, it’s an all day affair and we are able to sell crafts and other items like silk hand painted kites! I am also able to set up my massage table and do dollar a minute massages! I am also doing massage parties and in-home/office massages. Skipper does business planning & consulting (coaching is more like it). We are also with a new business called CieAura. I’m not listing all of these out as type of spam or advertisement, that’s not the point of this post. (although I heart marketing!) We just want people who are asking and or wondering to have an idea of what we are now doing.

 

Obee kabee, now for what’s a stewing in all parts of my brainage as of late. I already have DREAMS for Rio. Plans. Dreams. I’mma a scheming, y’all! After a year of living in sweet Rio, we want a bigger RV. Most likely a diesel pusher and Rio will be converted into a Mobile spa! A wellness center on wheels! Levi called it “Well on Wheels” Haha! I can give massages and other spa treatments from our wellness center on wheels! I can be like Clark Griswald’s cousin and crash your Christmas party with massages! My little heart is going pitter-pat, just taking it all in. Also, I want to mention that any time I talk about our goals with enthusiasm, I’m not trying to “boast about tomorrow” in a selfish braggy kind of way. God knows my heart. I wish everyone else could. At times, of course. I’m just living out and planning the dreams He has given us.

 

Moving on.

 

Something that I feel that has been a big part of our being able to move forward is being grateful and thankful for what we do have. It has never made sense to me when women, who finally have the house they want, gripe bellyache and complain about having to then clean it. That’s not us. There are things that aren’t always going to be pleasant about life, but when you focus on these things, you create more of it. When you focus on what you do have and what your husband does do right, you better watch out. A love fest will be brewing. I’ll save my thoughts on this for another post because believe you me, I have lost lots of ‘em. Bottom line. We are truly grateful for every job, every person, every circumstance that has launched us into this next phase.

 

Dream on. And make your life happen.