Travels (or should we say Travails?)

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

The course of true love never did run smooth. I am sitting at a stop at the end of the the Torino airport bus line. Our nine pieces of luggage, stroller, and two gigantic car seats are piled all around me. Actually, Axa is sleeping in one of those car seats. Tony has a sleeping Raj on his back and is off in search of a hotel. I must make a funny picture sitting on an overstuffed suitcase, typing away unconcernedly on my laptop as if I didn’t stick out like a tie-dyed giraffe.

We’ve had quite a day of it.… Read more

For lo, the winter is past . . .

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth.
The time of the singing of birds is come.

– Ecclesiastes

Tuesday we fly home. To Italy.

It’s hard to describe how it happened. In one way, I suppose it’s not surprising at all. It’s the third year in a row we’ve gone to Italy just as spring is beginning. But this has been one of those years you never want to repeat. No doubt before long I will look back on it and feel grateful for all I’ve learned. But for now, I’m just overpoweringly glad to be nearing the end of it, and delighted to find Italy waiting for us there.… Read more

Homeschool Update

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

It’s been a little while since I did a homeschooling update. The schedule wasn’t working for us. Tony changed jobs again at the beginning of January, and just last week began to work from home. We just haven’t had enough stability lately to keep a schedule. However, now that he’s home and things have settled down a little, I brought out the daily schedule I’d been working on. We looked over it together and refined it, and it’s been working quite nicely, at least for the past two days. We fit in everything, including eight hours of work for Tony.

Since Axa and Raj are 5 and 2, and Charlotte Mason doesn’t recommend formal academics before age 6, we do other things.… Read more

The Little Prince

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

“To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…”

“I am beginning to understand,” said the little prince. “There is a flower… I think that she has tamed me…”

The Little Prince is one of my favorite books.… Read more

I am my own avatar

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Tony took me to the movies last week. We saw Avatar. Being at the movies and other “crowd” situations always gives me the feeling of having stepped into 1984 or some such pessimistic future where the faceless masses surrender their emotions and opinions to be manipulated by the Powers That Be. The effect was vastly heightened by the whole crowd wearing identical yellow glasses.

And the movie? I’d describe both the storyline and feel of it as Star Wars: Episode 2 meets Princess Mononoke. Yes, the digital animation is amazing, and I feel obligated to mention it, as I am told it was terribly expensive.… Read more

Spring is the mischief in her

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

We have two goats. Sweet Betsy, as her name implies, is a patient, gentle creature who trip-traps tidily to the milking stand and back. While Sweet Betsy is the intelligent one who jailbreaks them periodically from every fastener we put on their gate (she’s currently working on a combination lock), she does sedately allow herself to be returned to her pen when discovered truant.

Not so Hershey. Her flighty mind is not fitted for the painstaking care of opening fences. But once she has escaped, she prances like one possessed. I amble in her general direction with my rope, speaking to her calmly as if we were friends.… Read more

Let’s toast the new year with bubbly milk

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Dawn points, and another day
Prepares for heat and silence. Out at sea the dawn wind
Wrinkles and slides. I am here
Or there, or elsewhere. In my beginning.
T.S. Eliot

I don’t remember ever being so glad to say goodbye to a year. Let 2009 be over, and let the bells ring in a brave new year. Last year at this time, we had just postponed our flight back home to Italy, our possessions had been in storage for nearly a year, we were moving into yet another furnished condo, and our business was weeks away from failure. I guess anyone but I could have seen disaster in the wings.… Read more

Christmas Gifts

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Last year I served dinner with my church group at a homeless shelter. We were back from Italy on business, and living in one of the nicest suburbs of San Diego. Life was ideal. Oh, we had all the normal problems and stresses of life, but things were going well. We had nothing more serious to worry about than which relatives to spend which days with at Christmas. As I walked into the dining room of the shelter with plate after plate of ham, potatoes and green beans, smiling and wishing a Merry Christmas as I put down each plate, I noticed the murals on the walls.… Read more

Why does he gallop and gallop about?

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

The wind is whistling and howling and blowing odd things about, the trees are tossing wildly, and the rain is coming down in gusty buckets. Not a time for outside play, however Charlotte Mason we try to be. However, Tony did spend a good chunk of the morning playing outside, since the goats knocked a two-foot square hole in their shed last night. We were lucky. Had the hole been in a slightly different spot, the chickens next door to them would have escaped.

We also went to cut our Christmas tree today. Lovely day for a visit to the Christmas tree farm.… Read more

Casteluzzo Academy 2009 Term 2 (Greeks)

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

During my blog hiatus, I did attempt another Casteluzzo term. This time we made it about halfway through before I had a root canal and was sick for months, Tony went through a couple of jobs, and everything kind of fell apart again. At this rate, it looks like I will successfully complete a term by about mid next year. It’s not the learning curve I would prefer (i.e. instant perfection), but at this point, I’ll take it. I guess it’s time for me to return and report on this term, since it was officially supposed to end this week.

Overview: Term 2 – Greeks
Since last term we read Gilgamesh and some other very ancient history, we spent this term very focused on the Greeks.… Read more