Howdy folks!

I am actually making progress on my 13 skills over here. In January, I posted about all the skills I want to work on this year. The three that I’m making the most progress on are Beekeeping, Teaching, and Organizational Skills.

Beekeeping

Tomorrow night will be my first of six beekeeping classes. I am so excited! I hope I can find some way to get a hive this year, even though we will be moving in the middle of summer.

Teaching

Tomorrow I begin a three-day internship on teaching using the Charlotte Mason method. The class is put on by Ambleside Schools International and it’s at an actual Charlotte Mason school in Virginia (Ambleside School). The internship is expensive, but it’s an investment in our homeschool to help me be a better teacher. I am really looking forward to learning a lot! I’ve also watched about half of the Charlotte Mason DVD and I’ve been reading a few books on the method. But, my stack of books is still huge!

We are reading Pocketful of Pinecones as a family read-aloud. It’s especially great because Kent is changing the names so that the story is about our family. So cute!

Organizational Skills

Actually, I think I already have the needed skills, but I needed the actual practice – if you know what I mean. So far, I have gone through most of the basement, but there is still a lot more junk down there. I’m pretty much on track for my plan to tackle the whole house before we move:

• January: Basement!!!
• February: Craft Room & Adele’s Room
• March: Kitchen & Butler’s Pantry
• April: Master Bedroom and Everett’s Room
• May: Living Room/Library
• June: Dining Room & Front Room

I am posting the master list of my skills here for reference (some are postponed until after we move):

• Beekeeping
• Teaching
• Organizational Skills
• Sewing
• Permaculture Design
• Building a Solar Oven – Kent wants to add building a wood-fired pizza oven (probably made from brick and cobb)
• Fruit Orchard (postponed)
• Root Cellaring (postponed)
• Gardening (postponed)
• Composting (postponed)
• Building Community (postponed)
• Animal Husbandry (postponed)
• Soap Making (postponed because I won’t be able to ship lye)

And, because I like to focus on the positive, here are some skills that I already have:

• fermenting foods
  • kombucha
  • kefir
  • saurkraut
  • sourdough
  • pickling
  • yogurt
• sewing
  • quilting
  • basic clothing from a pattern