Thoughtworthy: Kicking Off the New Year Edition

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I’m pleased to announce that Caitlin Beauchamp has agreed to be an Official Afterthinker this year! Woohoo! I’ll tell you what I told her when I asked her: I don’t want Afterthoughts to get too focused on big kids. There’s a whole Charlotte Mason world out there, after all. But all I have are big kids, so of course that’s where my mind is.

Enter Caitlin.

Did you know she’s the daughter of one of the founders of AmblesideOnline? She’s one of the original guinea pigs. I had the opportunity to meet her in Texas at the AO national conference, and even though I had horrible jet lag the entire time, I knew I liked her.

While Caitlin might be newish to motherhood, she’s second generation Charlotte Mason, and very few people can say that.

Here’s her bio:

Caitlin Beauchamp is a mother, writer, foster parent, and AmblesideOnline graduate. She holds a BA and an MA in the humanities with a concentration in creative writing. Caitlin lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband and two small children, enjoying the simplicity, freedom, and beauty of Charlotte Mason’s approach to early childhood.

I hope you’ll give her a hearty welcome. I’m looking forward to reading her articles this year, and I bet you are, too.

 

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So I’m back in the saddle again, it seems! While I was out for my annual break, we celebrated Christmas, I got a terrible cold, I baked too much fudge, Daughter Q. turned 11, we celebrated New Year’s, and I commemorated my 12th blogoversary. Tomorrow, I throw a birthday party.

Next week, I hope to present you with something special in celebration of Afterthoughts turning a dozen years old. Stay tuned…

 

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How was Christmas? I hope you managed to never be the White Witch. 🙂 Today’s the last day! Tomorrow is Epiphany, which means I have to undecorate!

 

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Some people choose a word for the New Year. I often choose a project. This is mine for 2018:

New year calls for a new special notebook project. You’ll find out more about it in one of the upcoming episodes of #scholesisters. #keepingcompanycm #motherculture #scholeeveryday

A post shared by Brandy Vencel (@brandyvencel) on Jan 3, 2018 at 5:02pm PST

As I mentioned in the caption, Mystie and I will talk about this in an upcoming episode of Scholé Sisters. (The show starts back up in February, so it’ll be a while…) This notebook has been a long time coming; I’m pretty jazzed about it.

 

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What’s your first book of 2018? Mine’s going to be Bandersnatch by Diana Glyer. This book was recommended to me by Brittany McGann (in fact, we’re going to do a podcast about it when I can get my act together) and it is soooo good. This book stirs up longings for me, the biggest one being to have a writing club. I’ve been pondering whether I could do this with my children, all of whom can weave a decent story (in my totally biased mother-of-the-author opinion).

We’ll see.

 

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This month in 2017:

Written last year, but still generally good advice, I think.

 

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This week’s links collection:

• Are There Optical Communication Channels in Our Brains? from MIT Technology Review
  • Sharing because (1) it’s cool and (2) I predict you’re going to hear more and more about this over the next 10 years.
• Incredible images reveal a futuristic vision inspired by Polynesian traditions for the world’s first floating nation planned for the Pacific Ocean by 2020 from Daily Mail
  • I’m intrigued.
• I’m a Pediatrician. Here’s What I Did When a Little Boy Patient Said He Was a Girl. from The Daily Signal
  • I had already been thinking in this vein. Culturally, it seems like parents and doctors and teachers are told to affirm without even pursuing the “why” behind the things children say. But it’s the why that helps us understand, hm?