Back

Embracing Winter: A Time for Peace, Planning, and Introspection | Day 16 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Jan 16, 2023· 2 minutes

Peace and Planning.

We are not doing much these days. We get up. We go for runs and yoga moments, and we have coffee and breakfast, we talk, we clear, we cook, we knit, we read, we eat, we watch Dr. Who in the evenings, and we sleep. It is winter. It is silent time.

Yet - a lot is going on. We do not do much regarding long walks, cathedrals, and art museums, and we hardly make new friends. We do things slowly and let this filter of the winter vibe let what is important stand, and everything else fades.

It feels good. After five weeks in Vila Nina in Sicily, we are finally reaching the stage of:

Peace and Planning.

In our case, it is almost counter-personality to make plans.

We are very spontaneous people who like to go with our intuitions, follow our hearts, just do things and look it up on the way, and find solutions and new ways and new horizons all the time.

This long winter pause took us to a place where we could actually do some planning. It takes time. Doing the budget, looking at options, selling what needs to be sold, planning what needs to be planned, preparing for big adventures, and leaving space in the calendar for all the peace and spontaneity we also need.

We do a bit of it every day—just a bit. Organize the agenda, the plans, the paperwork, the bucket lists, the gear, the bags, the van, the Google Maps, the Wikipedia reading list, browsing through festivals to aim for in the summer and slow mountain tops to walk to between cathedrals, metropoles, and villages.

It is fun and boring and seems endless.

But it does clear the mind, leaving us fresh and strong and ready.

Ready to change the plan, get new ideas, and listen to the heart. Always write the plan with a pencil. But make sure you do actually write it.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

PS Photo from December when we visited the cathedral of Syracuse, as I did not take any photos yesterday. Amazingly, the old Greek temple still stands inside the Catholic Church.

Unschooling and Parent consulting, conversations, blogposts, and podcasts on family life and learning

Hi, I'm Cecilie Conrad. I'm a trained psychologist, mother of four, radical unschooler and full-time traveller. I have lived with unschooling for over a decade and help other families find their own path – whether it is about homeschooling, unschooling, or the bigger question of how you want to live as a family.

I offer guidance, conversations and talks. I call my work grandmothering – not coaching in the traditional sense, but presence, professional insight and concrete help navigating motherhood and finding your way home to your own values.

Am I the right person to help you? You can book a free discovery call, and we'll talk and figure it out.

Listen to my podcasts

I share my knowledge and curiosity about family life and learning in my two podcasts.

Read my latest blogposts

intro-Info 1. This text has been translated with AI, I did not bother to check it, so please reach out if something simply does not make sense.  …Read more
If Wenceslaus, Václav, is the Good King, then he is like a tarot card, the ultimate king symbol; the king we would all like to have, perhaps the huma…Read more
The magnolias are blooming in Prague in April, and the apple trees, and the cherry trees. After a week in the city, we have landed. It is obvious th…Read more
The sun is shining in Prague, and the days are open and long. Perhaps it is “just” the cultural layers that hold a hand over us, but perhaps it is ra…Read more
The work-life-nomad balance includes a lot of moving around. A lot of adapting. A lot of driving in our case, as we are based out of our van. And som…Read more
How it all ties together: The unschooling, the love, the strategies, the stories. And how we ended up studying math while driving on the Autobahn fro…Read more
What happens when fully unschooled young adults with no preparation and no big planning suddently decide to enter the educational system? And how doe…Read more
Did I also write about love yesterday? Is there anything more important—will there ever be anything else at the center? Read more
With our usual delayed precision, we drove to the airport at the last minute to do what I believe is an international tradition: to be there when the…Read more