About two months ago I started looking into barefoot shoes/minimalist footwear. My focus was reducing sciatic nerve pain. I read Whole Body Barefoot: Transitioning to Minimalist Footwear and began doing the exercises in preparation to switch to my new pair of vivobarefoot shoes (they were only $75 when I bought them due to a refurbished panel)….
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Carving Wooden Animals and Accepting Me
I have been trying to be pretty strategic about the toys that enter our home. One on my list for awhile was wooden animals. Unfortunately the ones I really like are rather expensive, so I decided to make some. I started trying to carve with my pocket knife which was super slow going. Andrew came…
Happy 4th Birthday Emily!
We celebrated Emily’s birthday all weekend! In July she told us she wanted to go hiking at Turkey Run State Park, get frozen yogurt, and have a pink cake with purple frosting. Last week when we were finalizing plans she added in having her friends over for cupcakes. Andrew bought the supplies for the Pickler…
Creating More Music Autonomy with a CD Player
When we were at my family’s home in August I was surprised at how Emily and Nathan spent their time. In a big house with lots of fun toys they chose to dance to music blasting from a kids electronic keyboard. All day long. Listening to a handful of songs on the keyboard all day…
Emily’s Peg Rail Project
Sometime in June Emily ran out of her room with great energy. “Mom! Let’s make a peg rail for my room to hang my dresses on. We’ll hang it right here (running back in) by my bed!” A few times a week she’d bring up her plan. When we returned home from our summer travels…
Playground Woodworking
The success of carving the wooden spoon has spurred me on to an new passion of carving. I usually limit it to when the kids are outside playing, whittling away on my stick at the playground. I’ve used all sorts of playground equipment to provide stabilization for sawing or leverage for cutting. I carved two…
Rearranging Bookcases
This weekend we did some rearranging of books. This is part of a larger project to rearrange bedrooms and help provide everyone in our family with what they need. First we pulled out our small bookcase into the hallway and filled it with the children’s books. Emily and Nathan immediately took to their space. The…
Project: Hand Carved Spoon and Andrew’s Towel Rack
I long for us to have our own wood shop, or at least a garage with a few tools. I was feeling particularly bummed about our situation when I realized it was completely outside of my control. So I gave it up and started looking a tiny bit into hand carving. As in I watched…
Project: Play Dresses for Emily
Emily started growing out of many of the dresses she’s been wearing for the last year. I took some old shirts of mine and turned them into play dresses that should last for another year. The first dress took about two days to figure out. The second one Emily I made together in thirty minutes….
Achieving Inbox Zero
My relationship with email has changed dramatically over time. In middle and high school getting an email was as exciting as a letter in the mailbox. In college I had it open almost constantly, answering emails as they came in. I only deleted junk mail, leaving everything else in the inbox so I could find…