A House, A Home, A Hole not in the Ground

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. 

Possibly the best starting line in any book. Some days I want to find a hole and burrow myself down into it. Some days I am in wonder that there isn't a hole in my pantry. I knew teen boys were supposed to be hungry, but, Whoa!, I think Z is gearing up for a big one. At age ten he had trouble finishing a Happy Meal. He certainly eats like a hobbit now. I recently looked at the local high school's schedule. They have four lunch periods. I think Z would love school if he thought he'd get four full lunch periods. Sadly no four lunch periods here, just grazing allowed. 

We're spending a lot of time with hobbits this year as we work through Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings. I adore the depth of this curriculum. Reading the books is joy enough, and the author has added just enough to not burn out the student on Tolkien lore. We tweak portions (using the first edition), and are currently in book three of LotR. We've seen the movies, Z only remembers portions, but I have them playing in my mind while we read. It's making a full experience for my brain. Today we read through the battle at Helm's Deep. In the movie I can't help but choke up when Gandalf crests the hill astride Shadowfax. I choked up reading it today as well. 

In the meantime we must return to our own reality, very removed from Middle Earth. *sigh* It's February, that month again, but that lament is for another post. 

Not All Who Wander Can Have a Nice Trip

I enjoy a good pun. I've even used the phrase, have a nice trip, I'll see you next fall a few too many times. You know what. I had a nice trip. Yes, bound and determined to walk when opportunity presents itself Z, Daytona the dog, and I headed out on Thursday evening. I was tired, distracted, and thinking about other things. Apparently I wasn't thinking about the act of walking.

I trip less than a block from home. I kind of tripped over the dog, over the road, over my own feet. I was holding the dog's leash, she kept going. I knew I was falling but couldn't stop it. We were on the road. SLAM!! That's the sound of my old knee and hands and head hitting the pavement. My hands braced the fall, so I didn't bang my head hard. But my knee...Do you realize how much you need your knees?

I've always had crappy knees. I can't sit on my knees ever, not for years. It's like needles shooting in my kneecaps. Dont' know why, they operate fine. As I hobbled home I knew I banged up something in my right knee. It hurt like crazy, it still hurts. It's swollen still.

I iced it, took ibuprofen, got some TLC from Z and Tigger and propped it up. I'm still hobbling along, but I don't think I injured anything permanently. I had a bout of adrenaline this morning from another issue and the pain stopped for a while.

Now I'm back in bed, with The Son of Neptune beside me, Hush! it's a book. It's Rick Riordan's new book. At least I won't be distracted this weekend.

I'm sure I'll be fine, but it's just a pain (punny!) that this happened right when Z and I were making the commitment to walk. We'll head out again next week. This time he's in charge of holding the leash.

Not All Who Wander are Lost

Tolkien said it, I'm adding to it. Not all who wander are lost, some are still intrigued by the wonders. Some are intrigued enough to wander with sore feet, sore back, and no fortune to support them along the way.

This is the notion that Z and I started this week, to wander around the world. I was inspired by Jennifer of A Message for Eberle, who was inspired by Eberle herself.  Now Z and I aren't headed toward the Misty Mountains for real, we're walking around the virtual world.

I understand this is not as exciting as my actual goal of traveling the world, but it excites me still. I have wanderlust stitched into my DNA. Tigger has it too, so it's no wonder Z has twinges himself. But like Dorothy  of Oz we enjoy our homelife too. We also are experiencing our own economic tightening. We can afford the world wide web, not just the travel around the actual world.

Intrigued by Jennifer's google map, I made our own. We will start in our little part of the United States and trek a path 31,783 miles around the globe (as the crow flies). Z and I spent a good deal of time in Asian history last year, so our journey is different. We'll be headed to Hawaii and then down to New Zealand. We'll tour to Australia, India, Greece, Egypt, Russia, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, then back to Continent via Nova Scotia. Along the way we'll read stories of the area, watch movies of the area.(guess what we're going to watch when we hit New Zealand?), discuss tourism, maybe pull out a National Geographic or two.

I'll be honest this has given me a boost I so very much needed. Not only to exercise, but to remind my son that the world is bigger than we can possibly imagine. How are we tracking mileage? Since I want to keep a time frame on this we are counting 30 minutes of  actual walking as 75 miles off our journey. At this rate we will most likely take 18-24 months to finish our journey. We may change course, we may linger in one place, I don't know, and that is half the fun.

We're keeping a log book. I've written down all the points I want to hit, the distance between destinations, and a log of our walking. I'm pretty sure there are some academic skills being taught in there as well. The first travel book came in the mail this week. I did pick a few locations where we've actually traveled, at least Tigger and I. That way I can pull out pictures, which reminds me we need a poster board.

Z was just as excited as I was. Our dog, Daytona Grace, was excited too. She is walking with us, although she is more interested in the smells of our neighborhood than the aspect of traveling the world. We are teaching her to sit at each road crossing and look both ways. She's a smart dog and learned that in two days. She's almost seven, and still gets excited as ever just to see people walking by.

I don't know if Eberle knew what she was starting with her own journey. I don't know if Jennifer knows how inspiring she is (she's also responsible for me really thinking about what I own from her Halving it All project). I do know that today after dinner I told Z we were going for a walk, the dog had been bugging me for an hour to go. Z didn't balk. We hooked up the dog and headed out. It was nice, it was calming, it was peaceful. We've had a rough year in many ways. I wasn't sure I'd find that calm again. Maybe we simply needed a destination, even if it a virtual one.