Last fall, I watched Julie Bogart’s Periscope videos, in which she explains her concept of “awesome adulting”. She encouraged moms to make time to pursue something just for them, perhaps something that they had been interested in during childhood or early adulthood. I remembered my childhood fascination with archaeology, and thought it might be fun to take it up again, so I bought myself a copy of God’s, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram for Christmas. I thought it might be one of my year-long reads, but hadn’t started it yet.
Then my friend Dawn started a series on hobbies over on Pam Barnhill’s blog. Yesterday she argued that homeschooling is NOT your hobby, which initially left me feeling a bit depressed, because homeschooling does take up a lot of time and energy. Also, I don’t really have any current interest in pursuing the commonly-mentioned hobbies (crafts, photography, etc. – or even the scrapbooking I used to do). But then I thought about the book I’d bought, and the courses on archaeology from The Great Courses that I’d been eyeing for a while. I had a discount code (that ended yesterday!) and, with hubby’s agreement, bought them and watched a half-hour episode during quiet time. 🙂
Much of my reading is related to school – I have a lot of books I’m either reading to children or pre-reading to discuss – but I am going to try to have a few current-reads just for me. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is sitting on my bedside table, and I try to read a bit most evenings before bed. Words of Delight: A Literary Introduction to the Bible by Leland Ryken has been calling my name for a while, and I think this will be the year I dive in. One thing that AmblesideOnline has taught me is that spreading out multiple books over a long time is a good thing for making connections between books and actually less overwhelming for me!
How are you pursuing restful learning for yourself?
Yay, Anna! I’m sorry it left you feeling depressed, but I’m glad it made you do something! <3