The Experiment - Days 20 & 21

‎"Parents often think that they are here to guide the little ones. When in reality, the little ones come forth with clarity to guide you." ~Abraham

I'm a little embarrassed to say I missed blogging about the experiment yesterday - the first day I've missed. We were out most of the day and when we returned, we still had lots of garden and housework to attend to. I could have written a blog post around 10 last night, but Rebecca is off at a sleepover and Beth and I wanted to take advantage of an evening alone to woo each other.

But I'm back in the saddle this morning. Here's how Friday's progress went:

I did sit at the dining room table and stared at a candle for 15 minutes. It was a busy day, and all I could think about initially was my packed to-do list. I didn't want to stare at a candle and fidgeted at first. But in the end, it was good, because it slowed me down and pulled me out of the frenetic sea of activity in which I had immersed myself.

I did not make a cool, funky craft. I had planned to pour a nice Autumny pillar candle. All the candle making supplies were in disarray in the shed, where they had been since The Great Candle Catastrophe last Spring. Suffice it to say, I was cleaning the kitchen of wax for days after the Catastrophe, so I had shelved candle making for quite some time. But after a busy day, and after playing for a dance at Rebecca's school and eating a late dinner, candle making was not to be. (I think playing for the dance satisfied the extra task of playing my fiddle for 30 minutes.)

Onto Saturday's tasks (yesterday):

1. Make a special candle. Have fun and be creative. While making the candle, think about when you will burn it. (When I miss a task, I can almost bet that Rebecca will carry it forward on the next day, which is what happened on Saturday.)
2. Daydream a lot today. Have fun with it!

It's now Sunday morning, and I can report that I completed both tasks. It felt good to get the candle making kit back in order - it wasn't quite the huge mess I expected it to be. The candle is still in progress, so I don't know if it's "special" yet. I want to embed the exterior of the candle with cured fall leaves, but I'm not quite sure how to accomplish this. I might take the candle once it has hardened and drop it into a wider mold, place the leaves in the space around the outside of the existing candle, and then pour the outer area to make it wider. I hope it works!

For some reason, thinking of the daydreaming task on a blustery Fall day like yesterday brought to mind the Buffalo Springfield song "On The Way Home" - I suppose because the lyrics speak of dreams and windy days. This was my favorite song when I was 9 years old.

I daydreamed some, but not all day. It was a glorious, cool Fall afternoon, so I took a short break from all my chores and sat down with a book of rustic fireplaces (appropriately titled "Rustic Fireplaces"), and pictured my dream house with a rough-hewn stone fireplace that I could enjoy on cool Fall days like these. For years, I have heated with wood. I have a great woodstove, but the cost to install it at our current house is more than we can afford right now. So we shiver through the winter with baseboard heat. I dream of the day we can sit in front of a roaring fire in our own home! I don't know why having a hearth is so important to me, but I feel like I'm missing a limb without a home fire.

Rebecca is still at her sleepover, so I won't have today's task sheet until after she comes home, but once I get my marching orders, I'll post them here!