tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73218920171480723592024-03-05T03:18:57.864-05:00Content Whatever the CircumstancesPhilippians 4:11 "...for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances"Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.comBlogger892125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-34090482977316515222017-12-09T15:56:00.001-05:002017-12-09T15:56:57.192-05:00Feeling InadequateI was recently feeling very overwhelmed and inadequate, and as I worked through the reasons why I thought that the answers I discovered might be helpful for someone else to read also. So, here I leave them: real reasons why I might feel inadequate in my life and what I need to do to fix them.<br />
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<b><i>I am inadequate, and that's the way God designed it.</i></b><br />
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One of my children has always been particularly needy and attached to me. This child wants me to do everything for them, no substitutes are acceptable, and the list of things that need to be done can be quite extensive. I cannot physically fulfill all of this child's needs: no one person ever could, and a mother who tried would inevitably fail to fulfill some of the real needs of the other children in the family. As I was praying about the situation awhile back, the response that came to mind was that the unfulfilled (by me) needs will someday help that child turn to the Lord to fulfill them. I can pour every ounce of my love into this person and it will not be enough, but God has infinite love. The child will be unhappy often because I have delegated to older siblings and other adults the pouring of the milk glass, the washing of the hands, and various other needs, but that unhappiness will eventually help the child grow into understanding that material satisfaction will not bring the same level of joy that only God can provide.<br />
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God did not create us to be everything to everyone in all circumstances. Only He can fulfill every need. My inadequacies force me to depend upon Him and encourage others to turn to Him also.<br />
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<b><i>I am adequate, my feelings are simply not telling the complete story.</i></b><br />
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God provides every grace that we need for the tasks He entrusts to us. Some of my feelings of inadequacies are nothing more than wisps, less substantial than a gentle breeze. I need to realize that my feelings sometimes lie to me. I need to uncover the truth and live by it. I am enough, through Christ, for the life and the burdens He has given to me.<br />
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<b><i>Someone else needs to step up.</i></b><br />
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I've heard at various times the claim that in a typical church, 20% of the members complete 80% of the work. Whether or not that claim is true, sometimes my feelings of being unable to complete everything that needs to be done is directly related to whether <b>I</b> should really be doing it all. Perhaps someone in my household needs to step up their game. Perhaps I need to train a child to take on another chore. Perhaps it's time to arrange to hire a house cleaner or trade babysitting or carpooling with a friend. It's not that the tasks need to be left undone, it's just that someone else should be the one doing some of them. If I am trying to do everything by myself then I will fail and I will feel overwhelmed.<br />
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<b><i>I have taken on tasks that do not belong to me.</i></b><br />
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Someone, somewhere, is always telling me what I should do differently. Whether it's saving the environment, donating to worthy causes, eating healthier, becoming more involved in politics, decorating more beautifully, raising my family differently, exercising more, incorporating specific devotions in my prayer life, volunteering more--there is always someone ready to suggest that I could do better than I am doing at the moment. No one could every possibly fulfill that artificially perfect life. Some of those missions are mine, but sometimes I get caught in someone else's vision and forget to discern what <b>I</b> am supposed to do.<br />
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Whenever I take on tasks because someone else said that I should, or fail to let go of tasks that used to be appropriate before my life circumstances changed, my stress increases and my effectiveness decreases. They might not be bad activities. They might be goals that I have been faithful to in the past and might take on again in the future. But right now, at this stage in my life, they are not appropriate for me to focus on. And I will feel inadequate if I try.<br />
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<b><i>Feeling inadequate is only the first step.</i></b><br />
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What is causing my feeling? Does something need to change or do I need to simply let go? By identifying the causes I can grow into a better person, one who allows my failures to improve my life rather than becoming defeated by them.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-33205084235233753172017-03-05T20:07:00.000-05:002017-03-05T20:07:38.110-05:00"Aslan is on the move"<div style="text-align: left;">
Listen again: <b style="font-style: italic;">"Aslan is on the move"</b></div>
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<i>.</i></div>
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Those were the words that came to my mind this afternoon while praying at a prayer meeting. I thought of how those words impacted their listeners in the imaginary world of Narnia. I thought of the fear they struck in the heart of the White Witch and the hope they gave to the Narnians. I thought of how the Pevensie children, who had never heard of Aslan before, still experienced their impact. And I thought of how Aslan is a type of Christ and how those words would impact Christians in our own world.</div>
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The thing is, the situation became much, much worse before it improved. The White Witch already had suppressed hope every way she could, and before anyone saw the victory that Aslan brought, many would die, would be transformed into stone, or would suffer extreme hardships. Their faith in Aslan would be tested as completely as possible as they saw him killed on the Stone Table and were assured by the witch that they had been defeated. The witch herself feared Aslan and knew that her power was crumbling, but that only spurred her on to throw every last effort into defeating him. And from within the story, it looked like she had succeeded.</div>
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Every time I read <i>The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe</i>, I wonder: what happened to the fox family? Father Christmas stopped by with a feast and the witch turned them to stone for being witnesses to the diminishing power of her control over winter. The scene is a transforming moment for Edmund, who feels sorry for someone other than himself for the first time as he realizes that they could be statues there until they crumble to pieces. I assume that Aslan travels throughout Narnia and restores them, but the book doesn't specify. And then I think of all the others--good Narnians, on Aslan's side--who are killed in the final battle against the witch. Good always wins, but we might not see its victory this side of Heaven and we might pay a significant, even life-destroying, price in the meantime.</div>
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Aslan--that is, Christ Jesus--is on the move in our world today. We have been lied to that this world belongs to the evil one and that there is no hope for our victory. We suffer hardship, we are even slain, as we witness to the Truth. But have courage, hold on to your hope in the One Who Saves. Things may look bleak and they may (and probably will) get much, much worse before we see the improvement that is guaranteed to come. But remember: Satan fears the Lord Jesus, and even after he throws every last effort into defeating Him, he will himself be defeated.</div>
Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-41634862730662557392017-02-16T10:34:00.000-05:002017-02-16T10:34:01.588-05:00Definition: DissectI entered another giveaway contest yesterday. I didn't win... My husband asked, "Have you ever won something from that lady?" No, I haven't, which is only natural since I've only entered her weekly sweepstakes twice (and I think I was late the first time) and I was only one out of more than a thousand to enter that particular giveaway. But out of all the (little) time I spend entering giveaways my win rate is quite decent. I probably enter an average of two a month and win an average of once every 2 years. I just won another giveaway so I'm not really due to win again until 2019.<br />
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The giveaway I did win recently is a set of educational books on birds through the blog <a href="http://blog.growingwithscience.com/" target="_blank">Growing With Science</a>. One of the books includes "an actual owl pellet for kids to dissect", which I hoped my kids would not be too grossed out by. An owl pellet is a much nicer dissection project than, say, a whole animal. Something I can certainly handle. What I didn't realize, though, is that my Reese (8.5yo) first needed a definition of the word "dissect". When I proudly displayed our winnings on the computer screen, she looked at me, stuck out her tongue with a loud "YUCK!" and declared that she drew the line. She was not willing to dissect bird poop. She.Would.Not.Put.THAT.In.Her.Mouth. I quickly explained that "dissect" means "cut open and examine", NOT "ingest". "Phew! Ok, I'll do that."<br />
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I win just often enough to keep entering contests, though only if they are easy to enter, they are ones I come across in my regular activities anyway (not changing my lifestyle to pursue them), and they are for products I find appealing. With that mindset I'm not likely to win any contest again for several months, but statistics are funny-I could just as well win again next week. Maybe next time it'll be something we want to ingest and not just dissect.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-44289212043639350422016-10-23T16:56:00.000-04:002016-10-23T20:26:44.879-04:00CSA Closing ThoughtsI will be picking up my last csa box later this week. It's been quite a long time since my last post, and that summer busyness is precisely one of things I wanted to track through this series. I've *mostly* kept up with my box goodies, but I did lose nearly everything in a week's box back in July. Only a few items went into the weekend's potluck, so after the packed weekend I had most items still sitting in my fridge plus the leftover veggies from the weekend veggie tray. Then I got sick for most of the week, picked up my next box on Thursday, then left Friday morning for a camping trip. Hardly anything from that second box was used quickly, so those items joined what was still unspoiled from the previous week. Between the two weeks, I certainly did not make the best use of what I received.<br />
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One of the troubles I have with a csa is in the very nature of the program. I've purchased a weekly assortment of produce, whether I want them that particular week or not. If my week turns south (illness or injury) or is overly crowded, or I simply need a particular number and type of produce that the box cannot provide, I've spent more on produce than I would have otherwise.<br />
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If I were to purchase a csa again in the future, I would definitely consider buying again the particular program I'm enrolled in now. They gather items from several different farms, so each box has a far wider variety than I would receive in a program from a single farm. They have gone out of their way to provide a single unusual or less desirable item in each week's box, so there's not an overwhelming number of eggplant, or radishes, or arugula. The items which are generally more popular, the carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, and salad greens, do appear much more often. I can see in my weekly box the effort they make to filling each week's allotment with mostly traditional, familiar, highly desirable items, with one or two unusual vegetables to broaden our horizons, and including a portion of fruit when the fruit is available.<br />
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The selection hasn't been entirely perfect. We have received several jalapeno peppers, poblano peppers, many green and baby colored bell peppers and even less common havasu and cayenne peppers. We aren't a family that generally eats a lot of peppers....None of us seek out spicy food, so I have had to freeze salsa and chopped peppers to stretch the heat, giving us peppers for our winter eggs and meatloaves rather than a whole mouthful of spice. Each medium or hot pepper needs to be spread out over several meals or my kids will rebel against eating any of that meal. Nor did the peppers appear with enough tomatoes to balance them out so we had to buy more at the grocery store to make that salsa. We even gave away a few peppers, a couple spoiled before I found time to preserve them, and we have an entire year's worth or more now in our freezer. The peppers would not have been too much if we liked spicy Thai or Mexican food, but, well, we don't.<br />
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I love that this program sends me an email a day or two before pick-up with a head's up on what is going to be in my box. This helps a TON in meal planning and identifying what else needs to be purchased to round things out for our dinners.<br />
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How many people purchasing a csa are feeding 7 people? The program is, of course, designed to be used by one or two adults, so I need to buy more of certain items to make it a full dish. I'm glad not to receive more than one eggplant a week (two total) but we could eat the carrots of 10 boxes in one meal, so I still have to buy many more from the store to make a dish large enough to feed my whole family a full portion.<br />
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We have received some very commonplace vegetables, even if not the same variety as we would find in the grocery store, which brings down the value somewhat for me. I just don't have the time to play to the specialty types of potatoes, or onions, So the garlic, for instance, has a tiny bit of value in that I know it's not grown in faraway China and potentially contaminated with whoknowswhat chemicals. But I can't really showcase the distinction in flavor of fresh garlic over dried. So that specialty garlic which probably sells in a farmer's market for $2/head, or (considerably?) more, isn't really improving our meal any more than the cheapo bulk package garlic that I normally buy.<br />
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I learned how to use fresh herbs in a way that fits my cooking style (compound butter), so I will grow and make better use of more herbs in my garden next summer. I have really loved the availability of that butter to add flavor to steaks, pork chops, roasts, and chicken thighs.<br />
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We discovered a couple vegetables that we enjoy enough to add to our garden next summer: bok choy and kale. My husband is hoping for a bumper crop of kale so I can make him lots more kale chips.<br />
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We found some vegetables that we would buy and enjoy if they are on sale at the local grocery store, will seek out at farmer's markets next summer, and will consider growing in our garden in future years: fennel, kohlrabi, okra.<br />
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I explored new ways of preparing vegetables we had not enjoyed in the past and was successful with the eggplant and the turnips (at least the Hakurei turnips). I did not find success with the radishes, the arugula, the carrot tops, or the cilantro.<br />
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By enjoying produce as fresh as possible without actually growing all of it myself, I feel more inspired to try buying more of our groceries next summer at a farmer's market. Of course, I can say that easily enough in October; we'll see what actually happens next June when the local markets reopen. I noticed that one difficulty I faced with the weekly csa basket was its size relative to my family's appetite. We received one "sunspot squash" which is way too tiny to actually <i>feed</i> my family more than a couple bites apiece, so I need to hunt down at least four more similar squashes before I can use it. At a farmer's market I would be able to buy the quantities needed to feed the whole family. Then I would be able to buy, for example, just 3 peppers to a whole basket of tomatoes to make the salsa mild enough for my family's taste. I would be much more inclined to make a bunch of kale chips at once rather than a tiny portion of 4 leaves.<br />
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At this point we are not planning to buy a csa again next year, yet I consider this year's to have been a worthwhile investment. We will add new vegetables and herbs to our garden next year, we will keep our eyes open for other vegetables to include in our diet more often, and I have more recipes I am confident in to make use of vegetables, purchased or grown, to serve to my family more regularly. My children have been exposed to new foods they had never tried before, will be very willing to try some of them again, and have even had their opinions changed on the eggplant they objected to in ratatouille but devoured in one meal when breaded and fried. While we won't be purchasing another csa in 2017, I did find enough benefit in the personal challenges to eat new vegetables that I might consider challenging myself in this way again in another 10 years or so.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-69166280086385887872016-08-01T12:00:00.000-04:002016-08-01T12:00:25.050-04:00CSA Week 5<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw4m8eBfb8b8hiTd-Mqf56kO2hGU7lf1bhYmtNVb5LkANti2WnR4gCERwKvILALemxcB51UYsxNrqqZBeKmv8M8QyK_TNMMpIsGOlNHlh1-dA-_0HFaan8lNoC91PP6zypFs6uQFw0jXdw/s1600/20160715_081843.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw4m8eBfb8b8hiTd-Mqf56kO2hGU7lf1bhYmtNVb5LkANti2WnR4gCERwKvILALemxcB51UYsxNrqqZBeKmv8M8QyK_TNMMpIsGOlNHlh1-dA-_0HFaan8lNoC91PP6zypFs6uQFw0jXdw/s320/20160715_081843.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>French toast omelette with raspberries from our CSA</i></td></tr>
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This week we found in our box <b>peas, rosemary, swiss chard, golden raspberries, basil, cucumbers, breakfast radishes, scallions, and lavender</b>. We purchased at the grocery store <b>baby carrots, full size carrots, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, onions, broccoli</b>. Our garden has begun to produce in earnest so we also harvested <b>zucchini, chives, cucumbers </b>with tantalizing promises of green beans, tomatoes, and swiss chard coming any day now. The garden also gave us a salad of <b>purslane</b>, which everyone except my oldest daughter rolled their eyes at, figuratively or literally.<br />
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I'm not a fan of my food tasting "floral" and I didn't think my family would be enthusiastic about eating lavender either. My kids do like to drink tea though and the <i>idea</i> of lavender tea seemed like the best way to make the most out of this item. If they enjoyed it, we have the opportunity to make many more cups in the future from the three baby plants in our garden, once those plants become more mature. I spiked the tea with chamomile and extra honey to give them the familiar flavors and appeal of a sweetened drink. My husband and 7yr daughter turned down anything more than an initial "shot" of the tea but the other kids came back for full mugs and drank down the rest of the quart of tea.<br />
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The idea of a CSA filled with week after week of radishes was one of the reasons I waited this long before buying one. No one in my home cares for them and they aren't versatile in cooking like onions or scallions or even chives. I wanted to find a way to tame their pepper so I, at least, might enjoy them. I considered fermenting them since the all-knowing internet suggested that that might reduce their spice, but every time I look in our fridge the sauerkraut stares back at me: the sauerkraut that no one else in my family will eat. It's good sauerkraut but it's "sauer", and a family that turns up their nose at it, and pickles, and other fermented vegetables isn't likely to suddenly enjoy fermented radishes. So, I was still trying to figure that vegetable out as the week progressed.<br />
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I once again made compound butter with the rosemary and basil, combined with some garlic cloves and garden chives. I used a cube of it on our lamb steaks on Saturday night. The cucumbers and peas went into a vegetable tray for a potluck along with tomatoes, baby carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. I tossed the raspberries with some fresh strawberries (from the store, unfortunately) and served them for breakfast on Friday as the fruit portion of our "French toast omelettes". The peeled scallion bulbs went into a beef stew for Thursday's dinner and half the greens went into our Friday dinner stir-fry along with all the chard (stems and leaves), radish greens, and the last two garlic scapes from two weeks ago.<br />
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I love that even my toddlers can identify a wide variety of vegetables. They might identify them as being items that they don't like, but at least they know them by sight.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-13495437180736018102016-07-21T12:00:00.000-04:002016-07-21T12:00:07.773-04:00CSA Week 4Everything in the box seemed to be used especially quickly, reflecting both the actual items we received compared with last week's box and our schedule (my time available to utilize everything well). We received <b>cucumbers, strawberries, garlic scapes, carrots, kale, sage, basil, </b>and <b>parsley.</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu-RoSw8SylkstZmWe649Nj905p_5NW-3g6cHuhyphenhyphenkXxGffN6rZRZfX0W9OOSOK2PbDjlT1CLGO_mz9Io2exk4aL7Ym6QmTRbi1Yv5fUrnF51i0p3x3eg8NPbBYlfjHwhXZcPo11RfocCjK/s1600/20160707_153924.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu-RoSw8SylkstZmWe649Nj905p_5NW-3g6cHuhyphenhyphenkXxGffN6rZRZfX0W9OOSOK2PbDjlT1CLGO_mz9Io2exk4aL7Ym6QmTRbi1Yv5fUrnF51i0p3x3eg8NPbBYlfjHwhXZcPo11RfocCjK/s320/20160707_153924.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Our veggie box was pretty this week but the picture is not<br />because our humidity was so high</i></td></tr>
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Veggies we purchased at the store this week: <b>3#carrots, cauliflower, 3 bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, 2 avocados</b>. We harvested our first <b>three</b> <b>zucchinis</b> and <b>two</b> <b>cucumbers </b>of the summer. The only herbs I'm growing this summer are rosemary and chives and both are a little small right now so I've been harvesting from only small bits from them.<br />
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I cut some chives from the garden and mixed them in with the sage, basil, and parsley for the compound butter. I froze that in an ice cube tray, like before, and a cube of it wonderfully flavored our grilled steaks on Saturday. One of the cucumbers I sliced for the veggie tray I took to a potluck. Another cucumber my kids ate at lunch, just sliced and served plain. The carrots were deliciously sweet roasted. I tried the carrot leaves as a salad since we didn't receive any traditional lettuce; they were ok but nobody really <i>liked</i> them. They were better the first time with a baby cucumber sliced into them, but not great. I plan to chop the carrot stems very small into a soup and throw the remaining leaves in at the end. A couple of the kale leaves and garlic scapes I sauteed with onions and peppers for a breakfast frittata. The remaining kale, leaves and stems, I included in a huge batch of veggie meatballs (about 200) along with carrots, onions, pepper, zucchini, and garlic, frozen for several future meals. The strawberries were eaten at breakfast without anything being done to them except washing them. Two of the garlic scapes I sauteed with two of the zucchinis, in the place of the garlic cloves I would normally use.<br />
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My oldest daughter complained about why we received garlic scapes yet again, though I certainly didn't! Their flavor is a bit milder than garlic cloves and they can be cooked a bit longer without burning. This gives me just a moment longer to add the next ingredient (sauce, eggs, greens, etc.) which is sometimes extremely useful in this season of life when I'm frequently interrupted by babies and toddlers. Their flavor is more "green", like the difference between green onions and yellow onions. I would certainly not use them in anything where the green color would be off-putting or where the smoothness of pressed garlic is important. I find they are easiest to cut with kitchen shears like chives rather than slicing with a knife. I think my daughter's complaint was that they are neither A) a special sweet treat, aka a berry, nor B) a familiar favorite such as carrots, cucumbers, or tomatoes. They are no longer even C) an exciting new flavor for her to try like the fennel, cilantro, or bok choy. Yet, they are truly the type of vegetable I was hoping for when I purchased this CSA, since they are not found in the grocery store yet I can grow them myself. They give us a new way to utilize more of a plant that can in the future reduce our grocery store bill just a little bit.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-29576739714430877122016-07-14T12:00:00.000-04:002016-07-14T12:00:11.674-04:00CSA Week 3<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfyM72efzkvNpBMqVOCqqUx0kMOFMF8k4YU0VWgiTNd9eZSNURdb3QIVBGfc97ho-pDy84ev5Mt5G0z5JAJotlNmIQVFpeFBiOk-tD6YglOWi1vek8Q955uUWEC-vRrOQZz4wQfT1PsB78/s1600/20160702_121346.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfyM72efzkvNpBMqVOCqqUx0kMOFMF8k4YU0VWgiTNd9eZSNURdb3QIVBGfc97ho-pDy84ev5Mt5G0z5JAJotlNmIQVFpeFBiOk-tD6YglOWi1vek8Q955uUWEC-vRrOQZz4wQfT1PsB78/s320/20160702_121346.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>lettuce</i></td></tr>
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This is the first week I found it really difficult to use some of the items that we received. The <b>lettuce, snap peas, cucumbers, carrots, garlic scapes, rosemary, and saskatoon</b> were easy enough, but the<b> cilantro and fennel</b> challenged me. In fact, I did give the cilantro away. Neither my husband nor I like it, At All, not one little bit.<br />
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I was excited to see that we were receiving more garlic scapes. I loved using them the first time in stir frys, and will use them again in the same way, though we didn't receive nearly as many (three instead of around 10 I think). My kids were excited for the saskatoon berries. I let them each eat one the same day we received the basket and the rest we enjoyed thoroughly with our breakfast the next morning. My neighbor benefited from the cilantro. I had never eaten fennel before (scared off by its licorice reputation) let alone tried to prepare it. What we received was a rather small bulb with gigantic stalks. I decided to make a pesto with the leaves and roast the bulb, but what to do with the thick stems? I threw them on the sheet pan with the bulb and the carrots, keeping each of the three separate but tossing all with olive oil and salt to roast. I added a few of the leaves to our meatballs. But then I chickened out on the pesto and added the remaining leaves to a coleslaw instead with cabbage, carrots, and a mayo-free dressing. My husband ate three helpings before dinner (I think he had skipped lunch that day), the kids complained each time I served it (but I gave them each a bite-full anyway), and the rest made its way into my hubby's lunches and my own lunches. Coleslaw lasts a really long time, btw, if two thirds of the people eating it only take a single spoonful, and even that under protest. In our case it appeared at quite a few family meals over the course of more than a week.<br />
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We are attending a potluck nearly every weekend this summer as usual and I quickly decided to make "vegetable tray" the item that we bring to each one. If I don't have a lot of flexibility in my schedule we can purchase one pre-made and if I do then I can pick items that I know my family will eat. Leftovers are easier for me to do something with (I can rinse any gluten crumbs off and still use them as opposed to most things which I have to throw away) and my kids have a familiar vegetable without loudly telling me and everyone else that they're skeptical about the various salads and casseroles which might otherwise be their only options to eat the vegetable that they know they're supposed to eat before picking a dessert. This week's cucumbers and snap peas were perfect for that; Well, they would have been, but my oldest saw the peas and ate them all up before the next day was over. Some of the cucumbers survived until veggie tray time and I only had to add cherry tomatoes, peppers, baby carrots and a dip to complete the tray.<br />
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I've used fresh herbs that I've grown in the past, but I've used them mostly in the later half of the summer, with fresh green beans, tomatoes, zucchini, and other foods that haven't come into season yet. So far I haven't felt like I've really taken full advantage of the herbs in my box since I've only minced them into butter and frozen that butter for later. That will taste good on our winter chicken and steak, but it's not doing much for us yet in the summer. I did put a generous slab on the steaks we grilled though and we certainly enjoyed it.<br />
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<b>Other vegetables that we bought this week:</b> 6 pounds carrots, cherry tomatoes, cauliflower. The tomatoes were for the vegetable tray, the cauliflower and some of the carrots worked beautifully with the garlic scapes and an onion in a stir fry, and more carrots complemented various other meals throughout the week.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-78301635254232552812016-07-07T12:00:00.000-04:002016-07-07T12:00:05.649-04:00CSA Week 2<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4xcaKp1OWFfCg35iBKjX9nTFU0rOBbjO1FbQpM-cBd5ClRaeUJafUCgn9xguNCf1eYc40U13ZR5h46oYE947XDuqvEEH4Cvt7PzJqdBuRJq4XfSa81SBUwW3MUp6lPXvxBQLzMXdVL9ek/s1600/20160623_175316.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4xcaKp1OWFfCg35iBKjX9nTFU0rOBbjO1FbQpM-cBd5ClRaeUJafUCgn9xguNCf1eYc40U13ZR5h46oYE947XDuqvEEH4Cvt7PzJqdBuRJq4XfSa81SBUwW3MUp6lPXvxBQLzMXdVL9ek/s320/20160623_175316.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mixed salad greens, carrot leaves, carrots</i></td></tr>
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This week my CSA box included <b>salad greens, romaine lettuce, carrots, strawberries, mint, sage, bok choy, and a cucumber</b>.<br />
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The first thing I did with the food in the box was to mince the sage and mix it with garlic and softened butter for a compound butter. Then I roughly chopped the mint and added it to the jar of peppermint extract that I began last week. I covered the fresh leaves with more vodka and put the jar back in the cupboard. The salad greens fed my sister and I at dinner that same night and provided a salad for me for two more lunches. We enjoyed the strawberries fresh and unadorned. I chopped the carrots and added them to my salads. I separated the carrot leaves from their stems. The leaves went into the salads and a few went into my stir fry dinner on Saturday; the stems will be chopped into small pieces in a stew. The bok choy was really three small heads, altogether being about the size of the romaine lettuce. The first head I sauteed with garlic scapes from last week and marinated chicken and powdered ginger, and uncooked carrot leaves. That was a large dinner for one person but tonight I need to feed four children and myself, so I plan to repeat the same basic recipe, although with beef instead of chicken, but saute some carrots before I add the scapes and bok choy and serve smaller portions with plenty of salad on the side. <i>(Update: my husband and I loved that bok choy. <b>We're ready to add it to our garden</b> in future years.) </i>That salad: The lettuce head from last week was a round head with leaves I could use all the way through. It fed our family for two dinners. This week's lettuce head was a very large romaine. There is a lot more of it but it isn't really as nice. Since the head is obviously as big as it could grow I needed to trim more off the tips and the stems. So the size is larger but I felt like I wasted more of it and I felt like the quality was lower. There is enough lettuce for every dinner though, so we'll have salad from it at least 5 times this week.<br />
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Growing up, we didn't eat many vegetables compared to what I feed my own family now. We were required to eat the vegetable served at every dinner, but really that little word "the" means a lot and our portions were sometimes no more than a single spoonful if it was a vegetable we particularly despised. I went ahead and purchased this CSA because I knew that <b>I would be able to use all the vegetables in it</b>. Our family doesn't often eat vegetables at breakfast, but we generally get one serving apiece at lunch and 2-3 servings at dinner, and our servings are much larger than those I endured growing up. When my two oldest daughters were around 3 and 4 years old we decided that the portion size rule for a vegetable from a vegetable tray was the same number of pieces as their current age. So now, my 9 year old picks out 9 baby carrots (or cucumber slices, or cherry tomatoes, or snap peas) to qualify as having eaten her veggies at lunchtime. Cooked vegetables and salad are less fixed but imagine the amount of space that 9 cucumber slices would take on a plate, and that's a good approximation of the serving size I require them to eat before getting served any seconds on another dish and before eating dessert. It's not a hard-and-fast rule, especially when we're not at home, but it helps us all understand the expectations within our family culture. The little kids are not required to finish their vegetables before receiving seconds until I think they truly understand the concept. Our 3 year old is learning that now, which means that she generally has to finish her servings but not always, depending on whether she seems able to handle that requirement at that particular meal (i.e. is she too tired? overstimulated? too attached to the main dish?). Their portions also match their appetite rather than their age, so the 3 year old receives 2 baby carrots and the 2 year old receives 1. I think the 3 year old will graduate to 3 carrots by her half birthday. When I know they don't like a particular vegetable, I still feed it to them, just a very small amount, so they get used to seeing it on their plates. The 3 year old has been seeing lettuce on her plate a couple times a week for 2 years now (without actually eating it in all that time) and just decided to begin eating that single lettuce leaf. She even requested a second leaf recently!! So, really, I would like to increase our vegetable intake even more, but we do eat more than the "average" household. And when I say that the romaine fed us for 5+ times, that means enough lettuce to cover a third to half a large plate for each adult at that meal and the 9 year old, a quarter of a small plate for the 7 year old, and a single torn "bite-size" leaf for each of the toddlers. Each dinner means 1-3 adults, and all children.<br />
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<b>The other vegetables we did buy this week</b>: 3 pound bag of carrots, two green bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and a Sam's Club vegetable tray. Of course we still had to buy our normal amount of fruit since a single box of strawberries doesn't go very far around here.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-37555870620891677612016-06-30T12:00:00.000-04:002016-06-30T12:00:08.290-04:00Our first CSA<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3GDJgObutYCrMW-xEfMcmxVs6TeTl8JoLBL7c9QjuNJV-pLbmD5qBDPnV09UbKC7qNBWoIYzl7ADMnLupP51xq5toC2AnKKOWHANVBwzwK9EfI268tscJEUhN7RQDOVUVAt1kOhwR7Jnc/s1600/20160620_150802.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3GDJgObutYCrMW-xEfMcmxVs6TeTl8JoLBL7c9QjuNJV-pLbmD5qBDPnV09UbKC7qNBWoIYzl7ADMnLupP51xq5toC2AnKKOWHANVBwzwK9EfI268tscJEUhN7RQDOVUVAt1kOhwR7Jnc/s320/20160620_150802.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Beet Greens</i></td></tr>
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I bought a CSA for the first time this year. At $400 for 20 weeks, if we buy this CSA or another again then the cost of $20 per week needs to prove its worth. With my brain going in a million different directions these days I thought that keeping a record here will help a LOT when it comes time to evaluate the benefits of this CSA and decide whether to purchase it or another CSA next year.<br />
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In the first week's box <b>we received carrots, garlic scapes, beets, asparagus, lettuce head, mint, thyme, oregano, sage, and mixed salad greens</b>. I made a pound of compound butter with the thyme, oregano, sage, and a couple garlic cloves and froze most of it in an ice cube tray. I was concerned that the scapes would make an unpleasant texture in the butter, like the Egyptian onions did in the stew I used them in the first time, which is why I used minced garlic cloves instead of scapes. We diced the carrots, unpeeled, and roasted them and the asparagus seasoned with some of the compound butter, and served them with the mixed salad greens at dinner. There were enough salad greens for a second dinner's salad, and the head lettuce also lasted us as a side dish for two more dinners. I tried to roast the carrot greens but that was a complete bust. I put the leftover carrot greens in the next night's soup but when I pureed the soup, the greens wrapped around the stick blender. Next time I plan to cut the leaves up to garnish a soup and chop the stems into small pieces to add into a soup or roast. A couple of the beet greens, leaves and stems, went into the second night's soup and the rest were included with other non-box veggies cooked with a lamb roast. I peeled the beets with a vegetable peeler and sliced and boiled them. The older girls assured me that they tasted just like Grandma's (a good thing in their opinion) but not quite as tender. I think I'll increase the amount of water in the pot next time. The mint leaves I chopped into small pieces and covered with vodka. That mixture will steep in the cupboard all summer long, then I will strain it and bottle it for mint extract.<br />
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<b><i><u>My first week's thoughts</u></i></b>: <b>The box is smaller than I hoped</b> it would be, but not really smaller than I thought it would actually be. $20 seems like a lot for the quantity we received (compared to what we normally buy), but I also realize that <b>each item went further</b> than the same item from the grocery store would have stretched for us. The carrots, for instance, didn't need to be peeled, so we didn't pay for the peels to be put straight into the compost or trash. The asparagus were tender to the very end so I didn't need to snap the ends. The beets came with their greens and I was able to use everything except the peels. I wonder, if I boiled the peels for a natural dye whether I could freeze the dye water and expect it to work to dye Easter eggs next spring? We might experiment later this summer if we get a lot more beets. <b>What actually went into the compost</b>: beet peels, herb stems, carrot greens. Some of the items didn't really replace what we would have normally bought at the store, so<b> they seem to be an extra cost, but might really save us money in the future</b>. I never buy fresh herbs but I won't have to buy another bottle of peppermint extract for the foreseeable future and the compound butter will replace a small portion of the dried herbs that I <i>would</i> normally buy. <b>That savings will disappear in future years if I start growing more of my own herbs again.</b> The asparagus was an extra cost since we don't normally justify its expense to buy it outside of special occasions so the produce it displaced in our meal (cooked frozen broccoli, probably), which would have been cheaper serving-for-serving, made it a treat rather than a money savings. Of course, all the items in the box were higher quality than what we purchase at the store, so the <i>quality</i> justifies the expense, but whether we can afford that higher quality in future summers remains to be seen. I also need to remember when I evaluate whether to buy a CSA again that our grocery expenses increase during the summer on other types of food. <b>I don't expect our weekly grocery bill to go down as much as we might actually be saving with our CSA items</b> since during the summer we buy more expensive meat (to grill rather than roast) and more convenience food (vacations, vegetable trays, fruit trays, junk food).<br />
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Another benefit which could help us in the future and possibly save us money is in the items which will show up in our box which we aren't used to buying. Since they're in the box, <b>I will use them</b>. Since I've never used them before, I will be pushed to <b>find ways to use them that we all like</b>. Once I find ways to enjoy them, <b>we'll all want to buy or grow them</b>, so <b>our normal diet will expand and include other healthy, possibly even cheaper food</b>, such as cooking greens, turnips, radishes, and beets. We'll know how to use the carrot tops that we grow as well as the more familiar roots. We'll want to grow other cooking greens and become familiar with more unusual items such as garlic scapes. I'm motivated to use every single item we receive, since it did cost me more than I'm used to spending, so I'll learn how to preserve anything that we can't use immediately. And when the okra and rutabaga show up, we just might discover a new favorite vegetable. Of course, when the corn and peaches show up, no one will complain about those either!Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-87578402702290108782015-11-14T12:12:00.001-05:002015-11-14T12:12:37.994-05:00Recipe: Pumpkin Pancakes<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcC_L7ZkW8t9kkVWEzaU7RVpNhFfgwM40F19dI0ZwIIsSc_rYkKZD41WKk1jI5gazADP4gunHXKDRT13DTNwlGrEy3-Xkc6-L-Supe0KQUgfszNNnVHNGeCLxfcFKaDLXabLJc7BfAdEuu/s1600/20151114_115453.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcC_L7ZkW8t9kkVWEzaU7RVpNhFfgwM40F19dI0ZwIIsSc_rYkKZD41WKk1jI5gazADP4gunHXKDRT13DTNwlGrEy3-Xkc6-L-Supe0KQUgfszNNnVHNGeCLxfcFKaDLXabLJc7BfAdEuu/s320/20151114_115453.jpg" width="320" /></a>This recipe is for my sister-in-law. We had a family brunch today and she enjoyed these pancakes I made very much, especially considering that she doesn't normally enjoy pancakes. I managed to snap this shot of the last 3 pancakes just in time...they have since disappeared altogether. I will note that I used a gluten free flour mix which does not include xanthan gum, my pumpkin puree was home cooked, and I skipped the baking powder and replaced most of the milk with plain dairy kefir. But I've made the recipe just as it is written below, so anyone should feel confident in making it without those particular changes for their own delicious breakfast.<br />
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<b>Pumpkin Pancakes</b><br />
1 3/4 cup flour (gluten free or not)<br />
2 Tbl brown sugar<br />
1 tsp baking powder<br />
1/2 tsp baking soda<br />
1/2 tsp salt<br />
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or your favorite mixture of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, citrus zest)<br />
1 1/2 cup milk<br />
1/2 cup pumpkin puree<br />
1 egg, beaten<br />
2 Tbl melted butter<br />
chocolate chips, optional<br />
Preheat griddle. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl; mix well. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, pumpkin, egg and butter; mix well. Combine wet and dry ingredients.<br />
As you pour each pancake on the griddle, sprinkle with a few chocolate chips if desired.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-70937257521268537052015-11-02T03:30:00.000-05:002015-11-02T03:30:00.622-05:00Happy Heritage: I want to go to work!8 year old Maria likes to write notes to me rather than asking her questions directly. Mostly the notes are requesting to be excused from a chore or tattling on her sister or begging for a treat. Recently while she was supposed to be unloading the dishwasher she handed me this note:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Dear Mama,<br />Why do we have to do dishes? We can always just leave them in the dishwasher and pull out the dishes when we need them<br />your loveing dauter<br />Maria</blockquote>
I pointed out that then there would be nowhere to put the dirty dishes and sent her back to finish her chore.<br />
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2 year old Princess seems to understand remarkably well that there is in fact a baby growing in my tummy. She LOVES babies so...she asked me what she should eat to get a baby growing in <i>her</i> tummy also. She points to her mouth every time we talk about the baby, wishing I would explain to her how to eat a baby so she can "own" one of her very own.<br />
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Both she and Ant are jealous of my husband and sister (who lives with us), who get to go to "work" nearly every day. It must be a fun place since they keep going back again and again. So Princess has told me more than once now that "<i>I</i> want to go to work!" I assured her that when she's a teenager then I will certainly allow her to go to work also. She seems content with that answer for now.<br />
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I <i>might</i> have figured out where my kids get their antics from. At a retreat recently I had to apologize to the other women I shared a cabin with. My disclaimers: 1) I was just beginning to recover from a bout of the flu and 2) I wasn't really awake. Of course, neither were the other ladies, until I changed that for them. Anyway, about 3 hours before breakfast I suddenly woke up (well, obviously I didn't truly wake up...) to the sound of someone coughing. I immediately thought that 1) the person coughing was my sister who 2) was thoroughly exposed to the flu I and my kids had fallen victim to 3) was coughing because she was getting sick (normal warning from my kids) yet 4) wasn't awake herself and therefore 5) NEEDED me to wake her up and rush her to the bathroom (as if she weren't adult enough to do that herself: remember, none of my kids would be able to if they suddenly succumbed to the flu in the middle of the night. I therefore jumped out of bed and rushed over to her bunk to wake her up. Unfortunately, the woman who groggily woke up wasn't my sister; I'd gotten the bunks mixed up. A second lady heard the commotion and asked me what was wrong, then directed me to the correct bunk. The third woman I woke up was in fact my sister, who had <i>not</i> been coughing, was <i>not</i> sick and did <i>not</i> need my help. By then the lady who was actually coughing (recovering from a cold, nothing serious at all) was also awake. Thoroughly embarrassed, I returned to my own bed and prepared my apologies for everyone whose sleep I had disturbed.<br />
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The tradition goes back at least one more generation, but I'll let my mom decide who to share her story with from that same retreat weekend. ;-)Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-64932837770657939372015-10-26T03:30:00.000-04:002015-10-26T03:30:01.875-04:00Beginning with a scheduleMy plans and expectations <a href="http://contentcircumstances.blogspot.com/2015/10/frequently-changing-plans.html" target="_blank">were so disrupted recently</a> that I couldn't even remember what normal was <i>supposed</i> to look like. For about a month we had children waking up for a couple hours each night, children coming down with the flu, with strep throat, with whoknowsexactlywhat virus, and children sharing their sickness with me. :( I didn't get up at my normal hour, I was kept busy caring for sick children and their laundry, I didn't have the same alertness I would have after a normal, restive night of sleep. The kids watched tv, we skipped schoolwork, our meals were simple and less healthy and less substantial than normal...when we gathered together for a meal at all. As appetites returned and normalcy became a possibility again, I needed to pick up the broken bits of our schedule and put them back in the correct order. But what belongs in our schedule? Time to watch tv? Personal quiet prayers? Exercise? And when is each supposed to happen anyway?<br />
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There is a fine balance between <a href="http://contentcircumstances.blogspot.com/2015/10/frequently-changing-plans.html" target="_blank">cheerfully letting the Lord rearrange my plans</a> and "planning to fail by failing to plan". I need to have a baseline to work with even though I need to have a good attitude when my plan falls down around me. So, I printed a basic weekly schedule, wrote in first the items which are most consistent (meal times, mostly), then filled in the remaining hours from the most common to the most vague (four hours each day to "clean/cook/laundry" can mean a lot of different things). I kept it as realistic as possible rather than as efficient as I might dream it could become. There's not much time left for some very important pieces, which is why I was struggling to make them happen. Hmm... Well, that didn't surprise me! Yet, just filling in the schedule form gave me inspiration for tweaking some areas, including some more reading time for the kids, to their great excitement.<br />
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I can see that some small steps need to be attached to big areas but I need to make sure they aren't taking over the big areas altogether. For instance, during my time to shower and dress, if I spend a couple minutes cleaning up the bathroom but I make sure that I do <i>not</i> add any other little chores to that time slot than I will have a cleaner bathroom without spending 15 minutes later in my day to come back and clean it. I'm there already; the supplies are there already; no toddlers are there yet to interrupt; but I really don't have time to spruce up the bathroom <i>and</i> the bedroom <i>and</i> the closet <i>and</i> put away that load of folded laundry. Those little chores are not visible on my schedule. Nor are the little interruptions such as bumped knees and baby cuddles. I could look at this outline and become depressed at how little I am actually doing or I can realize how general it truly is and accept that I could never fit all the little items on one sheet, no matter how tiny I wrote my letters. I try to give myself credit for the many things I do which will never be visible on a piece of paper especially on the days which end with a messier house and a frustrating review of an uncompleted to-do list.<br />
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I cannot foresee which days will be turned off-kilter with no private time left for quiet prayer but I can make choices which allow me to spend time with the Lord despite a disrupted schedule. Redundancy helps: a habit of listening to the Bible in audio form while I am getting dressed, a semi-regular pattern of memorizing verses as a family at mealtimes, family devotional read every morning at breakfast, Bibles on my phone and my Kindle and my desktop, and subscriptions to motivating Christian podcasts and blogs help me keep God's Word in my life even when I don't read it right after waking up or find my reading thoroughly interrupted by my children. Consciously choosing for the Lord also helps: I don't know when I'm wakened in the middle of the night whether that interruption will be a one-time event or whether it will end up keeping me up for 3 hours and derailing my morning plans. But I do know that if I choose during that first time to read Scripture and/or a good devotional then I can reduce the damage done to my relationship with the Lord even if I sleep in the next morning. I have a choice; I can choose to spend that time with God rather than with the tempting novel or facebook or other media distraction. The result might not produce the same type of prayer life as I would have if I were a cloistered nun. But then again, God didn't call me to be a cloistered nun, He called me to <i>this</i> life, complete with all its interruptions. He must therefore want me to seek out ways to maintain and build my relationship with Him while embracing the interruptions.<br />
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My schedule will never be perfect. It will never go entirely according to plan. But ocassionally reviewing what it's "supposed to" look like helps me realign my priorities despite the disruptions.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-22926472764646368602015-10-19T03:30:00.000-04:002015-10-19T03:30:03.636-04:00Frequently changing plansThe Lord seems to delight in changing my plans. He knows me thoroughly and He seems to find it essential for my well-being to upset my schedule and my expectations frequently.<br />
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I am a person who appreciates a well-organized schedule. I like a little variety in my routine yet I like having a routine for that variety to fit into. I would even be inclined to schedule my meal plan for an entire month at a time ... and save the meal plan to reuse the following year.<br />
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Instead I hardly plan our family meals at all, simply keeping the supplies on hand for a small number of meals and planning in advance only about 1 meal in 30. There is a certain level of ordered routine to my day which is ignored more often than it's followed. I don't even take time each summer to plan my kids' school year, a practice so common among homeschoolers that it's practically required. I just find that my plans are disrupted so often that it's not worth putting much time into making them in the first place.<br />
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I don't know all the reasons why God has me in this position where planning ahead is mostly a frustrating waste of time. I do know that it pushes me beyond my comfort zone, it forces me to rely more completely on God, it prepares my attitude to more willingly accept interruptions which are disguised opportunities to serve others, and it enables me to say yes to new plans without the disgruntled attitude which I might be naturally inclined to have otherwise. I can't see the big picture from my perspective but I can glimpse enough of it to realize that the frequent disruptions to my plans are well within God's plan for me, for my good.<br />
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I wouldn't want to give the mistaken impression that I've given up on planning nor that my life is completely unstructured. I am a strong supporter of routine, I do keep a schedule, and I think that in general faithful Christians will have structure in their days and in their prayer lives. But as God is not limited by a calendar, we shouldn't be either. There are opportunities in front of us which were not anticipated and planned for last week. Opportunities to love, to serve, and to welcome others into our hearts.<br />
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Right now my schedule says that I sleep until 6:10, I pray before the kids wake up, and they pray before doing their schoolwork or playing. As important as prayer is, even this part of my routine is frequently interrupted. Sometimes it is more important to cuddle a child in the middle of the night than to wake up and pray before my children get up. Sometimes my personal, just me-and-God time is less important than the person asking for some love. Sometimes my kids need to experience God's love for them, shown through me, more than they need to practice their personal prayer time. Sometimes that means they miss their Scripture reading altogether for the day, replaced with a walk through the neighborhood or a "family visit" to a doctor or another family outing (fun or not). The only real question is, did I use the disruption to my routine to honor God and love another person or did I use it to distract me from the Lord?Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-9343963876232293102015-10-12T03:30:00.000-04:002015-10-12T03:30:01.133-04:00Homeschool in Our Home Part 2Sometimes I've been asked at what age I begin my children's education...uh, when they're born? My goals during "kindergarten", as I told my friend recently, are 1) learn how to read, which can take up to three years (barring unexpected circumstances such as trying to teach them when they're not ready to learn or a condition such as dyslexia which would cause the process to take longer), 2) familiarity with numbers and basic addition, and 3) learning to love learning. Everything else is meant to help you accomplish those 3 goals. But really, I set them up for these three achievements from the time they're born by counting snaps on their onesies, singing the alphabet while washing their hands, reading books aloud, reading more books aloud, engaging their curiosity, and so much more.<br />
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My friend and I were chatting about what resources I used when my older daughters were officially beginning to homeschool. Many of these sites are ones I still use; others I will want to remember in a couple years when my third daughter is ready to begin officially schooling. Since I typed up the list anyway, I figured I would record it here as well, for my future reference and for anyone else who might find it useful. I also sent her links for some local resources that our family has used or that I have thought of using but haven't actually taken advantage of yet: mainly local homeschool groups, a local homeschool conference, and our local YMCA, where my daughters have taken a "swim and gym" class several times now.<br />
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<a href="http://www.starfall.com/" style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12.8px;" target="_blank">http://www.starfall.com/</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.first-school.ws/theme/alphabet.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.first-school.ws/<wbr></wbr>theme/alphabet.htm</a> (This was my main resource for our alphabet books. I printed off maybe 5-10 different coloring page/tracing page/activity sheets and when the girls finished them I punched holes in the pages and in two pieces of construction paper. The construction paper provided the cover for their books, I helped them sew through the holes with yarn and a plastic tapestry needle to bind the book together, and then they and/or I wrote a title and their name on the front cover. They had the option of decorating the cover with a picture and I wrote the date in a corner.)</div>
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<a href="http://www.dltk-holidays.com/xmas/cards/index.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.dltk-holidays.com/<wbr></wbr>xmas/cards/index.htm</a> (This site has a lot of complementary activities: coloring pages, Christmas cards and tags, preschool puzzle pages, etc. I've used them sometimes to help fill out the alphabet books that we made and to make Christmas cards/tags/thank yous printed on cardstock and colored for relatives.)<br /></div>
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<a href="http://amongstlovelythings.com/" target="_blank">http://amongstlovelythings.<wbr></wbr><span style="color: #1155cc;">com/</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> (This is honestly my favorite homeschool website right now. Her biweekly podcasts have </span><i style="color: #222222;">so much good</i><span style="color: #222222;"> in them and usually include interviews with high profile homeschool experts I had previously not heard of but immediately discover I need to learn more about.)</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.<wbr></wbr>likemotherlikedaughter.org/</a> (Not directly homeschooling, but rather Catholic family culture, the "mother" Leila homeschooled all her own children and has a lot of advice, whether you want it or not, about teaching, reading, family prayers, reading lists, etiquette, home management, raising boys to be men, and anything else you let her give her opinion on. Three of her grown daughters, with young children of their own now, share the blog with her.)</div>
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<a href="http://www.holyheroes.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.holyheroes.com/</a> (The Holy Hero kids share most weeks a short video illustrating the Sunday Gospel reading, a coloring page, and a short quiz. Most helpful of all, though, is their Advent Adventure with daily videos, coloring pages, activity pages, audio rosary decades, and audio saint stories. My kids LOVE these. I put together a Jesse Tree with coloring pages before I knew about Holy Heroes, but now we do a combo of the two since everything is assembled for the Holy Heroes but they don't have any women in their ornaments. They also have a Lenten Adventure similar to the Advent Adventure. Both adventures include a variety of ideas for Catholic seasonal activities, most of which we don't do, but we get a lot out of them without the extra activities.)</div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">http://amblesideonline.org/curriculum.shtml (Although I don't use their curriculum, I try to plant their book suggestions on our shelves, or in my daughter's Kindle, or through audio books resources. I review their lists regularly so my kids are exposed to those appropriate to their grade level. I find many more books on many more book lists, but the ones on this list are a solid beginning and after all, if the particular book is free on Kindle or available through our library, why not? If we study it together later on, then they'll already be more prepared by having read it first by themselves. If we don't, their literary knowledge will be more complete for having read it by themselves than if they had never seen it before in their lives.)</span></span></div>
Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-7090957135999609782015-10-05T03:30:00.000-04:002015-10-05T03:30:04.806-04:00Homeschool in Our Home Part 1<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've had so many ideas for posting on this blog but no time to actually type them out and publish them. I've wanted to. But with 4 kids, two of them under the age of 2.5, a fifth child on the way, homeschool, personal prayer, interaction with real people in person, personal needs and realities of life, nothing has happened here. Still, the thoughts rattle around in my brain and typing them out helps me organize them. So maybe I'll be able to visit more often, if only as an organizational tool for myself and my poor brain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A couple friends of mine asked me about how I homeschool as they were canvassing several of their friends for new ideas. I typed up a schedule of our typical day for them, and then I typed a list of several resources I have used or currently use. Since the lists are already typed, I might as well publish them for anyone else who might find them useful. ;-)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My kids are Maria-8 (3rd grade), Reese-7 (2nd grade), Princess-2 (likes to imitate her older sisters in everything they do) and Ant-16 months (our first boy, and he doesn't do anything school related). The particular friends who asked for my input have children 7 and under in one family (already homeschools but was needing to make some changes), and 5 and under (just beginning to homeschool and really asking around all the moms she knows for the different perspectives to figure out what works best for her).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
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<span id="yiv1945508971yui_3_16_0_1_1442143750174_2991"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a "typical" "full day" at our house, distinguished from a "half day", when I require reading, math, and Spanish, but the rest of their checklists are not required because we are busy with other activities (field trip, art projects, trip preparations, trip clean-up, etc.) The morning family routine is mostly similar, so they are still doing memorization, personal prayer, and family prayer on "half days".</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. Around 7am-8:15. Wake up, dress, before breakfast chores</span></div>
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<span id="yiv1945508971yui_3_16_0_1_1442143750174_3232"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2. Around 8:15-8:45. Family breakfast. My husband and I model <a href="https://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/" target="_blank">narration</a> for them during the breakfast conversation by recounting something we read that morning during our personal Bible studies. Sometimes he will ask the older girls to tell about their Bible studies from the day before. We read a short devotional, review our <a href="https://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/" target="_blank">Scripture memorization verses</a>, then pray aloud for each family member. The older girls are expected to pray for one of their siblings and an extended family member, giving them practice in praying aloud in a small group.</span></span></div>
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<span id="yiv1945508971yui_3_16_0_1_1442143750174_3228"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3. After breakfast chores, finish dressing (hair, teeth). If our schedule allows for it, we have family prayer time, which means my husband plays a couple songs on the guitar, everyone sings, those who choose to may play a child instrument (tambourine, egg shaker, ukulele, maraca). In between songs we encourage charismatic prayer (1-2 minutes) and close the prayer time with the Our Father, usually in Spanish.</span></span></div>
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<span id="yiv1945508971yui_3_16_0_1_1442143750174_3312"><span style="font-family: inherit;">4. <a href="http://contentcircumstances.blogspot.com/2011/05/ppt-pray-daily.html" target="_blank">Personal Prayer Times</a>. For the prayer, I began by making <a href="http://contentcircumstances.blogspot.com/2012/01/childrens-prayer-chart.html" target="_blank">a chart for each girl</a> and we would pray through it together, sometimes 1 parent-1 child, sometimes both girls with 1 parent. Probably in another year (i.e. 3yrs old) Princess will begin doing this with me and it won't take long after that before Ant starts to join us. Now, the older girls (8.5 and 7yrs old) do their PPT and Bible studies individually, but I don't think they do much prayer; I think they mostly focus on the easier Bible study. That's ok; we'll return to the PPT instructions in another couple years. They currently own their own Bibles and read a section each day. We've put out incentives to them for finishing 1 Gospel, all 4 Gospels, the NT, the OT, the whole Bible, the whole Bible in 1 year...They have both finished Matthew (ice cream!), Maria has finished all 4 (bigger ice cream!) and Maria is now working through Romans, motivated to earn a new doll when she finishes the NT. Reese has a basic notebook for her prayer journal, in which she writes the date and the title of what she read, then a picture of what she read. In May Maria graduated to a pretty diary journal and writes in it rather than drawing. Her description is still very basic (even more so because she is reading Romans) and she independently includes other details of her life. I do not look at her prayer journal, but I do ask both girls about what they read and usually review Reese's, sometimes helping her decide what she will draw, helping her work through what she read and what it means.</span></span></div>
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<span id="yiv1945508971yui_3_16_0_1_1442143750174_3660"><span style="font-family: inherit;">5. Checklist: Math, Reading, Handwriting, Spanish, Music, Phys Ed. I add or change it around when needed.</span></span></div>
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<span id="yiv1945508971yui_3_16_0_1_1442143750174_3874"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Math is a lesson with Mom and a worksheet, followed by about 7 days' worth of worksheets. They bring their worksheets to me to correct before they can consider their math "done" for the day. They have the option of working through more than one worksheet in a day or skipping sheets if they know the material well, but they don't often take advantage of either option. It's easier to work through problems that are already well understood and thereby extend the lesson than to jump forward to the next lesson which includes new, more challenging concepts. They usually take the easy road. ;-)</span></span></div>
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<span id="yiv1945508971yui_3_16_0_1_1442143750174_3873"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Reading is their choice of a number of non-fiction books supplied by me via the library and book sales. I choose these books based on their current interests. I would like to give more structure than I do now to the subjects, eventually. After reading the book or the chapter (if it's a long book), they write/draw <a href="http://contentcircumstances.blogspot.com/2013/09/homeschool-book-reports-for-children.html" target="_blank">a book report</a> and give me <a href="https://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/" target="_blank">an oral narration</a> of what they learned. Sometimes instead of the report they will complete a project (found by me or invented by them), interacting in another way with the material (e.g. creating their own solar system map, researching and writing about Eastern Cottontail Rabbits, making a recipe from the book, writing out a timeline found in the book's appendix).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Handwriting right now is cursive. They trace on a white board I found at a garage sale or they trace and copy on a worksheet I print off. They are not expected on this assignment to <i>think</i>, only to form their letters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I require them to work on a Rosetta Stone lesson at least a couple times a week. They can work on it every day or they can alternate with some youtube videos I found and bookmarked for them of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O8RUPDzUcI&list=PLCE1049BCC2C78B97" target="_blank">stories being read in Spanish</a>. On days when the computer isn't available they complete this assignment by memorizing 5 words from an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0794502849/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0794502849&linkCode=as2&tag=contewhatethe-20&linkId=EW3GDQ47YKUFAXY3" target="_blank">Usborne picture dictionary</a>. My goal is that they creep as slowly as they choose toward mastering a second language, enough that someday they can call themselves bilingual and can test out of any foreign language requirements in college. Hopefully they will even be able to communicate in Spanish and may even choose a 3rd language to learn before they graduate high school.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Music has expanded to two instruments, ukulele and piano. We bought our daughters ukuleles to help them learn how to hold a stringed instrument, how to strum, how to form chords. When they know enough about music and are big enough to hold a guitar, we hope that this introduction will make it much easier for them to learn how to play the guitar, which is really the instrument we most want them to learn. We just got a piano and our goal with that is for them to learn music theory and reading music. My husband was going to teach them the ukulele but his schedule hasn't allowed for it, so we have found <a href="http://www.ukuleletricks.com/11-must-know-ukulele-chords-for-beginners/" target="_blank">the internet</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIZQPNdXHqI" target="_blank">youtube</a> helpful for that instrument, since our standards for it are very low. Like Spanish, I find <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxWayKYBYi8#t=77" target="_blank">lessons</a> and bookmark them, and the girls play through <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht0cJ02DYNg&list=PLwMLyLbEciPTT_IBTYaEqnbBwx3M-MRwS&index=8" target="_blank">one video</a> until they have "mastered" (our standards are low...) the song. We will be paying for them to have weekly piano lessons, though in the meantime I give them mini lessons most days and they play around on the piano with the books that we have for the required 20 minutes (required because they would rather spend 60 and I limit them to 20).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Phys Ed is my most recent addition. My daughters would like to spend more than half the day reading but their attitudes are more positive when they get some intentional physical movement in their day. Phys Ed can be completed with a family walk, with swimming lessons, with backyard (or team sport) basketball practice, with biking or running around outside, with racing up and down our basement stairs, with a modified Pilates or dance party.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">6. Ideally, lunch (noonish) is made by one of the older girls, rotated weekly, by herself or with me. I am working with Maria especially on thinking ahead (first step in menu planning). She can make a few simple things on her own, including fried eggs, quesadillas, microwaved white or sweet potatoes, and boiled eggs. With my help she can follow a basic recipe and make meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Realistically, this of course doesn't happen every week. I eat lunch after the kids so I can read aloud to them during their lunch. I am trying to read one picture book after each chapter book, before beginning the next. These read-alouds are classic children's fiction, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Little House books, the Wheel on the School, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">7. Quiet time, around 12-2pm. The babies nap, I eat and introvert, the older girls read quietly whatever they want or play with something quiet such as drawing, writing, paper dolls, other dolls, Legos.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">8. Snack time, followed by any schoolwork they didn't finish during the morning. They are quite capable of completing their checklists before lunch and often do, but sometime attitudes and procrastinations get in the way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Not in our daily schedule: We listen to books on cd in the van, books that the kids enjoy but my husband doesn't when we're in town (American Girl, Phantom Tollbooth, The Wizard of Oz) and books we all enjoy on roadtrips (history, Chronicles of Narnia, James Herriot). Besides planting books on the shelf filled with history and science, we do science projects together a couple times a month. Movies that we watch together as a family are often nature related, and the kids learn a lot from them. I also find myself showing them a video or article more days than not, either because they ask a question ("What does a baby bee look like?") or because it comes up in my newsfeed (</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/science/under-a-farmers-field-a-woolly-mammoth-in-michigan.html" target="_blank">A woolly mammoth skeleton found in our state this week</a>) or something in one of the blogs I follow for this very purpose sounds like it will interest them (<a href="http://blog.growingwithscience.com/2015/09/plant-science-seed-dispersal/" target="_blank">Squirting cucumbers??</a>)</div>
Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-11060392124041323362015-06-06T03:30:00.000-04:002015-06-06T03:30:00.600-04:00Happy Heritage: Pork Shoulder Butt<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPiwKXgzpR5LvPNkyjWwSslhvNZDLi983yqr5FKv36UTGxhc43MBFjpCcp5FLFLLys3qO-qIZ-BIoxbRVRfKsqUws055Aoz07KakWk4Yq71L5kVrgeCsBnpDvbzISYUO7XgTydkMajxa9j/s1600/10982034_10155469661135543_145124696297275159_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPiwKXgzpR5LvPNkyjWwSslhvNZDLi983yqr5FKv36UTGxhc43MBFjpCcp5FLFLLys3qO-qIZ-BIoxbRVRfKsqUws055Aoz07KakWk4Yq71L5kVrgeCsBnpDvbzISYUO7XgTydkMajxa9j/s320/10982034_10155469661135543_145124696297275159_n.jpg" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Stuck. It didn't stop his explorations though.<br />Over the next couple days he got stuck again<br />underneath the end table's shelf, on the<br />shelf, and on the top of the table.</i></td></tr>
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My older daughters watched me prepare a pork shoulder butt for our dinner. "That's not pork, that's a lamb leg!" No, I explained, it was pork, it just was nearly the same shape as the lamb we had eaten recently. I pointed out the label "proving" my point. "Pork Butt!!" Actually, it's from the shoulder. I don't know why it's called the butt. "Phew! Who'd ever want to eat a pig's butt??" I then explained where ham is taken from. Surprised, my daughters immediately declared their willingness to eat a pig's rear end any day, at any opportunity.<br />
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Maria declared that she wishes we had a summer house in Europe. Or a winter house. Or any house. So I asked where in Europe. First she chose France, then London, England. Reese's eyes lit up and she eagerly asked where the candy shops are located in Europe. "Switzerland." I told her. So that's where she wants her extra house to be located.<br />
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I've learned the best way to teach children how to spell: 1. Bring a toddler into the home. 2. Since the toddler will quickly learn to understand the word "candy", tell the older children that they will not be allowed a sweet treat after meals if they use said word too early. They will therefore have to spell it out, "C-A-N-D-Y" when requesting their after-dinner treat. 3. Wait up to a month (depending on the age of the toddler) for the younger child to realize that those letters mean the same things as "candy". 4. Tell children they will have to spell "D-E-S-S-E-R-T" so the toddler will not stop her meal as soon as she hears them spell out the earlier, easier word. 4. Repeat steps 3 and 4, increasing the difficult of the words spelled. Suggestions for those more challenging words: confectionery, sweet treat,<br />
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I was recently nominated the castle gardener. "Because queens don't weed strawberry patches and we are princesses, so..." Grade school logic: They are princesses and princesses live in castles, and the gardens of those castles are cared for by official gardeners. If I am tending the garden, then I am <i>obviously</i> not eligible to be their mother, the queen; I <i>must be</i> the gardener.<br />
.<br />
My slider phone spontaneously decided to stop working. I can receive calls but the keypads don't work properly so I cannot make any phone calls, read any text messages, look up any phone numbers, or shut off my morning alarm. Neither my husband nor I was surprised at my phone's death, though it was sudden. We knew it was coming. We had already decided that when it occurred, we would upgrade me to a "smart" phone, but would continue using the slider until it truly died. The biggest advantage I am hoping for from my new phone is the ability to take pictures with it. The last two years I have been at a clear disadvantage, not having my camera always handy and finding it inconvenient to physically attach the camera to a computer in order to do anything with the pictures I take. Hopefully the change will be a positive one for our family's annual photo album and for this blog, since it should be easier to take more photos and to upload them more quickly when and where I choose to.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-83820823291269859932015-05-15T19:38:00.000-04:002015-05-15T19:38:33.053-04:00Happy Heritage: Taking my pets for a walk<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisSP26QYZ22OTqGxKd02QV2QUHTMGdnK3ieOV21HH2k2-WaRCNCh1-9yaxuh8Q5T7UHTu5ah5w3sHnvzgXfFJnX91BZPtYR3UKIm13GHKQbQYk4KRT2hF2nxObGXzaSwNU9iZpyAoDHVqZ/s1600/11041114_10155515415635543_5808975211757903152_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisSP26QYZ22OTqGxKd02QV2QUHTMGdnK3ieOV21HH2k2-WaRCNCh1-9yaxuh8Q5T7UHTu5ah5w3sHnvzgXfFJnX91BZPtYR3UKIm13GHKQbQYk4KRT2hF2nxObGXzaSwNU9iZpyAoDHVqZ/s320/11041114_10155515415635543_5808975211757903152_n.jpg" width="176" /></a>The toddler was screaming a bit too much this afternoon so I called the troops together for a walk. One daughter decided to ride a scooter and carry an umbrella, but couldn't find the scooter at first and then found the two items difficult to juggle. Another daughter decided to ignore my instructions to wear tennis shoes and put on flip flops instead. As she struggled in vain to bring her bike out of the back yard, her foot slipped out of the sandal into a mud puddle. I then nixed the bike/scooter/umbrella plan and sent her for clean socks, clean pants, and actual shoes. The garage needed to be closed from inside after pushing the oversized stroller out and the front door locked; I commissioned my 8yr old to do that while the 6yr old insisted that she could not ever fit her shoes on and would therefore never, ever be able to go on a walk.<br />
.<br />
A lady walking her dog appeared to be laughing at us.<br />
.<br />
I corralled the 1yr olds into the stroller (both; today the baby turned 1 and the toddler has another 2 weeks before turning 2). I helped the 6yr old put her shoes on. I had turned the front door lock myself so I knew that when the 8yr old closed the door then we would be all set.<br />
.<br />
Our walk was less than a mile. Toward the end we caught up with that same dog-walking lady and she let my <strike>pets</strike> children play with her pet.<br />
.<br />
Yes, she <i>had </i>been laughing at us.<br />
.<br />
When we got home, the front door was not properly closed after all, so anyone could have waltzed right in. I'm not the least bit shocked at that lady for laughing at us since I sometimes feel like we are indeed a comical three-ring circus or a vaudeville show. But <i>we</i> don't charge money for tickets.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-1001484193735582502015-04-06T21:16:00.001-04:002015-04-06T21:16:25.342-04:00One Ordinary Day<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpcPM0C0o7gGJxZJTSy4Krx_vFdnikarCFADsChgdEqnY6Pq3xMsZiZ6-NUMsm9W9sUXUcByGNeRLoJraY_mSVgRmC6PDoTE5sYagAE9ID0dGq7D5b6Q6oRcEb8ABlj4s2bRsxZSgMRx-h/s1600/11136741_10155388314955543_2263877360299135851_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpcPM0C0o7gGJxZJTSy4Krx_vFdnikarCFADsChgdEqnY6Pq3xMsZiZ6-NUMsm9W9sUXUcByGNeRLoJraY_mSVgRmC6PDoTE5sYagAE9ID0dGq7D5b6Q6oRcEb8ABlj4s2bRsxZSgMRx-h/s1600/11136741_10155388314955543_2263877360299135851_n.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a>My husband put together a generic weekly schedule for himself, inspiring me to write down what I do in one day. This is from the day after hosting back-to-back parties, our annual family Seder on Saturday and our first hosting of Easter for both our immediate families.<br />
.<br />
4am. The 10 month old still won't sleep after an hour fussing and crying. This isn't the first time tonight, by far. So I take him downstairs to rock him and watch him while he plays a bit. I pray and read part of my Scripture, knowing that I probably will not get my normal prayer time in later on. More than an hour later I finally get to take him back to bed.<br />
.<br />
6:15. The baby wakes up just before the alarm goes off. My husband and I say a prayer for each other, then he takes him downstairs to join him in his morning routine and I fall back asleep.<br />
.<br />
7ish. Time to get up. Shower, dress, get the toddler up and changed.<br />
.<br />
8ish. Breakfast. The toddler doesn't last more than halfway through the meal and is returned to her bed for a nap. Family Scripture memorization, devotional, prayer for each child and my sister who lives with us.<br />
.<br />
8:30. Remind the older girls to clear off the table (as if they didn't know that they should...). Clean up the baby, change his diaper, carry him downstairs with the laptop to begin sorting laundry. Since I didn't take time to sort laundry last week, there's a lot to be done today. I begin a podcast and start working. Of course the girls need to be set back on track, the baby spends some time with his aunt, the toddler wakes up, the baby goes down for a nap, I worry that husband will leave without his lunch, some towels manage to be put away by me. I clean a bathroom sink and toilet bowl: the bathroom needs more cleaning, but I want to make sure the laundry gets done today. The toddler wants to play with Easter eggs, eternally optimistic that the one she's opening will have some candy in it. She wants to play with them in the sunroom, <i>with me watching</i>. Aha! there's a box that I can unpack, coming in and out of the sunroom as I put each item away, so she'll feel like I'm in the room with her but I'm still accomplishing something. Ohhhhh....she found an egg with candy in it. In fact, she found her sister's still-full Easter basket and has opened at least 3 eggs. (Un-?)fortunately(?), her response to Peeps this year has been to take one bite, then leave the rest for someone else to finish. So she's only had 3-4 bites of candy...the most expedient way to get rid of the rest (and hide the missing candy from the sister!!!) is to eat them. I've eaten plenty for today. Baby is learning how to climb stairs and falls off the bottom step, thankfully onto the carpeted basement floor. A friend calls with a question about rice flour. I'm not the only one in our circle who eats exclusively gluten free, but I am the one who has eaten this way the longest so I am consulted by someone or other a few times each year. Girls found at least 3 Easter eggs still hidden and I found 2 more. 2 teenagers yesterday decided they were too old for Easter egg hunts (although those in their 20s decided to go for it) and sabotaged anyone who entered the basement, so I suspect there are a few more down there still to be discovered. In between activities I look up some parlour games, something I realized yesterday that we could have done but I wasn't prepared to bring out; I want to be ready by our next big group party.<br />
.<br />
11:30. Oldest daughter is told to get lunch ready for herself and siblings and 2nd oldest to set the table. Toddler doesn't want to come upstairs so I have to carry her to the table, screaming all the way.<br />
.<br />
noon. Kids eat lunch while I read aloud Caddie Woodlawn<br />
.<br />
1:00. Older girls are having their quiet time, littles are playing together, I am eating a bit. When I stand up to put some dishes in the dishwasher I discover the littles have found a big sister's basket...toddler is opening a chocolate peanut butter cup and baby is almost done with a Peep. While I move the baskets again to where maybe she can't reach them, the toddler finds the jar of yellow paint which Grandma brought over for an Easter project. I'm <i style="font-weight: bold;">so glad</i> she didn't manage to open it before I had a chance to rescue it from her. While I'm putting that out of her reach, she starts chewing on a nerf arrow. Screaming, I carry her up to her nap.<br />
.<br />
1:10. Maybe I can finish lunch now. Or maybe not <i>finish</i>, per se, but at least eat a little more...<br />
.<br />
1:30. Baby is ready for his nap. I have an hour or so now to introvert, a time I cherish dearly.<br />
.<br />
3pm. Everyone except the toddler is up again. I rope the older girls into helping me reload the dishwasher with all it can hold. If the rest of the day goes well I might get them to unload it a second time and reload it before bedtime. Otherwise, we're still making forward progress in our cleanup from the weekend festivities. The handwash dishes are all on me though. Maybe I'll get the wine glasses done before the toddler wakes up. I remind my oldest to practice a couple songs for the musical she is participating in. I look up a few recipes for remaking the leftovers into new dishes. Mental reminder: I need to write down how I cooked the lamb on Saturday so I can repeat it next year. It turned out my best yet! Supervised the older girls painting the art project (the one the toddler wanted to spill) before the toddler got up and made a mess trying to participate. I think I changed 6 diapers so far (husband changed at least 1). Made a smoothie for snack followed at dinnertime by "snacky dinner" (aka, serve yourself whichever leftovers you prefer). The baby was sitting in his highchair without his tray when I sent the toddler to her highchair. On her way past she decided to help put on his tray; she's going to be a FANTASTIC babysitter someday. It helped make up for the wet wipe container she brought down to the baby's level so the two of them could empty it out.<br />
.<br />
6pm. Older girls are playing on the computer. They're a little jealous of a friend who gets 30 minutes computer time a day and accumulates her time if she misses a day; my kids get 10 minutes and have to work to earn any extra time. They don't seem to mind too much yet though and the shorter time definitely improves their attitude. Where did the toddler get that strip of aluminum? Change a diaper, feed a bottle, resign myself to waiting until kids are in bed before preparing my own dinner. Only an hour to go... Begin the week's shopping list, but I get only one item written down when the toddler asks to go outside. Her socks, of course, are up in her crib. I put them on her this morning knowing she would go outside today but she took them off during her first (breakfast) nap. Once she is bundled up properly for the weather I let her out into the backyard by herself. The neighbor's dog barks at her through the fence and she barks back. I contemplate that there's a certain similarity between "letting the dog out" and "letting the toddler out". The dog gets called back inside almost immediately for barking at my daughter. I'm not sure why the baby suddenly starts crying. Maybe he just needs the cuddles he gets for his cries to reassure him that I'm available to him? I send the older girls out to join their sister. I begin preparing my own dinner. Peering out the kitchen window I see the older girls climbing over the side of the deck and the toddler watching them carefully. I can almost hear the wheels turning in her head, storing away their activities to try herself at a later date.<br />
.<br />
6:45. Baby insists that he is too tired to stay up and I put him to bed. I hope he will stay asleep all night but it is probably that this is really a nap and he will be up again in a couple hours. Girls outside are building a fairy garden.<br />
.<br />
7pm. Girls come inside and I send them up to get ready for bed. My second daughter wants to know how much more she has to grow before she can sit in the front passenger seat of cars. My third daughter doesn't know what she wants and cries over everything. My firstborn wants to wear regular clothes instead of pajamas to bed yet I know from experience that if I allow this then she will "not have any shirts to wear" during the daytime in another day or two. I also know that she has more than enough of both pajamas and shirts, she just wants something different.<br />
.<br />
7:30. Girls are in bed. The toddler's screams woke up the baby, so he's not in bed but he's too tired and grumpy to let me leave the room or even move about the room and I'm too tired to carry him everywhere. I grab a snack to supplement my lack of dinner and sit down with him next to me.<br />
.<br />
9pm. The baby finally fell asleep again. Next step will be transitioning him back to his crib without waking him. The girls are also seemingly asleep (no noise) and I hope they will stay asleep all night. What have I done over the past 1.5 hours? Nothing productive except take care of the baby and eat a little. My brain is too fried to do more. Time for bed, if I can successfully carry the baby up to his crib. If not.. well,..<br />
.<br />
So much of my day didn't make it onto this list. Little things like closing cupboards or putting items into their correct place as I passed through a room. Important things like kisses and playing games. Background like music and a kids' science podcast while we did other things. Forgotten things because too much happened in between the activity and the open moments to write down my day. I'm tired now. My husband will return home to find me watching tv because I'm too zoned out to do anything more productive. I might wish I was in bed and I might find myself unable to go to bed because the baby is awake. I rarely have his nighttime bottle prepared before my husband comes home. If the baby cooperates I will turn in between 9 and 9:30 to read and work a pencil puzzle until I fall asleep. If he doesn't cooperate, it might be an hour or two later.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-66109326095498003092015-02-19T12:57:00.003-05:002015-02-19T12:57:34.488-05:00Essay: Sneezing, Coughing, Wiggling<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Reese</u></div>
<div>
Brainstorm things that make you cough or sneeze. It is polite to cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze.</div>
<div>
Dust makes you sneeze. Cold makes you cough. Feet make you sneeze because they have lots of dust.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(THE END. GOOD BYE)</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Maria</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Today I am talking about things that wiggle. Here is a list of things that wiggle: Worms. Centipedes. Babies. Beatles. Butterflies. Ants. (And bugs.) Worms: I do not like worms. Because they can frighten me very very very very very very very much. Ants: I do not like ants. Because they get in my food.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
THE END.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
GOOD BYE.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Notice; not for children under 5.</div>
Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-39024674930322209652015-02-17T03:30:00.000-05:002015-02-17T03:30:00.361-05:00Lent 2015<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0PBwv3HJXlM6hX7uHhKGAqBrCo7DJjBw5kV2sVSxElBThFUI1lcB-LIK-HWFauwkAXKia4gRzcFcJ_yglvpQy0eNxjBhst2R2alaYFPx8JU7vKcWgkHg5KLsHHX9SoHVQUJp61vZ00Rv/s1600/IMG_0378.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0PBwv3HJXlM6hX7uHhKGAqBrCo7DJjBw5kV2sVSxElBThFUI1lcB-LIK-HWFauwkAXKia4gRzcFcJ_yglvpQy0eNxjBhst2R2alaYFPx8JU7vKcWgkHg5KLsHHX9SoHVQUJp61vZ00Rv/s1600/IMG_0378.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Any calendar would work. But this is the one we<br />use each year during Lent.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There are two general approaches to Lent from people who earnestly want to celebrate the season well: To give up very little in order to focus more intently on prayer and avoid overwhelmingly strong temptations to sin because of trying to do it all, and To give up a great deal in order to rely more completely on God and discover a level of sweetness in the Easter celebration which is only found following a period of intense fasting. I have certainly done the former and made vague swipes at the latter (too weak to carry it through) and I have also done the bare minimum, hardly taking notice of Lent at all. This year as I see the various "how to celebrate Lent" articles, I feel the guilt of imagining that I <i>should</i> give up thisthatandtheother but having absolutely no desire to do so. I know that the feast is sweeter following a true fast, but I wonder how sweet my attitude would be midway through a difficult day without the items that I would have given up or with the knowledge that I <i>ought</i> to complete whatever extra devotion I've committed to before I relax that day.<br />
.<br />
Lent is really an opportunity to examine our lives, to pray and consider what invitations the Lord has offered to us which we have not been accepting. Has He been asking you to depend upon Him rather than chocolate? Give up the chocolate cold turkey for 40 days. Has He been inviting you to spend time with Him <i>every</i> day? Make a commitment to do exactly that for __ minutes every day. Has He been encouraging you to speak more lovingly? Lent is a great time to choose to speak 3 words of affirmation for every 1 critical word. There are innumerable suggestions online for ways we can use the season to become more faithful servants of the Most High according to whatever our particular spiritual needs are. It only becomes counterproductive when we choose the means of celebration based on someone else's spiritual needs or we know and commit to a particular path but give up when that path becomes difficult rather than turning to the Lord for the strength to carry on.<br />
.<br />
<a href="http://contentcircumstances.blogspot.com/2013/02/lent-making-it-real-for-our-whole-family.html" target="_blank">Our Lenten felt calendar is up and paper hearts are cut out</a>. Each of the 40 days we will each write down something we plan to do that day to love Jesus. For my toddler this will be her first introduction to the idea of celebrating Lent, as she scribbles on her heart each day and tucks the paper in that day's pocket. The heart itself will be her "sacrifice", her gift to Jesus. Her 8yr old and 6yr old sisters will probably repeat a lot of the same sacrifices, but won't be bound to a full 40 day commitment. I find that the visual calendar decorating our family room, the accountability from my family expecting me to tuck a heart in each pocket, and the actual routine reminding me to consider each and every day how I can demonstrate my love for the Lord are incredibly helpful in setting apart the season as a time to grow closer to the Lord.<br />
.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFEV62Y7mXgKhgqtg8Yv6pqMZnd8JE1qi1xk48g8vxQoBKZiQYKSdfijjunLc1kgJ86AQ3Jq98GitsQeb4PSCajdHnL9rYw6IQVaugUkobDp1wFJeoL5L41MOMzB1g41FObzMY5cFbDTGB/s1600/10978664_10155194238235543_3453498166432239018_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFEV62Y7mXgKhgqtg8Yv6pqMZnd8JE1qi1xk48g8vxQoBKZiQYKSdfijjunLc1kgJ86AQ3Jq98GitsQeb4PSCajdHnL9rYw6IQVaugUkobDp1wFJeoL5L41MOMzB1g41FObzMY5cFbDTGB/s1600/10978664_10155194238235543_3453498166432239018_n.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>So easy to love and so difficult to love<br />at the same time.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
My actual sacrifices this year won't be spectacular. I won't be giving up everything imaginable. I won't be adding in a new level of intensity in my daily devotions. In fact, it will mean less Bible study than I planned on at <a href="http://contentcircumstances.blogspot.com/2015/01/happy-heritage-moving-into-our-joshua.html" target="_blank">the beginning of the year</a>, since I found it too complicated trying to figure out which readings I was supposed to do each day (not always using the same Bible) and changed my daily readings to just the next chapter of the Bible. Mostly, I'll be staying the course, working on the same things spiritually and personally that I was working on last week. There won't be any big changes in my day that outsiders could point to and identify as Lent. I might throw in <a href="http://callherhappy.com/40-lenten-activities-for-kids/" target="_blank">a few activities with my kids</a> and I will keep the Catholic rules of abstinence and fasting, but nothing drastic. (Well, the <a href="http://callherhappy.com/40-lenten-activities-for-kids/" target="_blank">temptation cookies</a> might be considered drastic...) But as I've been examining my life, praying and considering what the Lord asks of me, mostly He has been answering "Take just one step." Not, "Add a great deal of stress to your life". Not, "Give it all up". Rather, His answer is more along the lives of staying the course, moving forward, doing the best I can today in loving Him and loving my family. Like my Bible readings, I am just trying to read the next chapter after the one I read yesterday, or adding a little more love into my children's banks to what I contributed there yesterday.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-57954557958578725252015-02-10T12:23:00.000-05:002015-02-10T12:23:11.989-05:00Essay: I want<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Maria</u></div>
One day I found an ad in a newspaper for a doll. This is it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
COME ONE.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
COME ALL.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
COME BUY.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
THIS DOLL!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
And I went to the store and bought about 2 or 3 hundred dolls!<br />
<br />
<br />
(this is not true)(do not believe it)<br />
(do not make it popular)<br />
(Really)<br />
(do not read it more than once)<br />
(believe me this is not true)<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
GOOD BYE<br />
<br />
<br />
<u>Reese</u><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
You saw an ad in the paper for a china doll. You want to add it to your collection, but you can not find the doll! Boo hoo.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(SEE YA LATER! GOOD BYE.)</div>
</div>
Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-58125306234312072872015-02-10T03:30:00.000-05:002015-02-10T03:30:05.030-05:00Wasted Time<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVtl1K4quUvJx_jO7VS19JWLW3ngPpBd9l0zyUK-H-uZkkvwnwSXfuTChz438_j4ZpvOf3bLoNr8b9cAc1DSjurr8YYNpI-PVrAShhzUiFC3Ua7DPetDYX45Cn3CKtRiTOUOvOjsW3yxG/s1600/934751_10155147683460543_5779936887138336679_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVtl1K4quUvJx_jO7VS19JWLW3ngPpBd9l0zyUK-H-uZkkvwnwSXfuTChz438_j4ZpvOf3bLoNr8b9cAc1DSjurr8YYNpI-PVrAShhzUiFC3Ua7DPetDYX45Cn3CKtRiTOUOvOjsW3yxG/s1600/934751_10155147683460543_5779936887138336679_n.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a>I recently wasted an entire week of my life. For a whole seven days I didn't clean or cook or supervise my daughters' schoolwork. Laundry was washed but the clean clothing was dumped in a mountain on my bedroom floor. Not a single box was unpacked. We fell behind on the dishes (even dishwashers need someone to load and unload them). The kids and I stayed home. In fact, I spent most of the week sitting on our couch watching tv or amusing myself online.<br />
.<br />
I wasted an entire week of my life because my children got the flu one after another and then gave it to me. I wasn't really lazing about; I was too busy emptying basins, changing sheets, catching vomit, cuddling feverish babies, replenishing water bottles, etc., etc., etc. It was a week in which I accomplished absolutely nothing...and that was the most important accomplishment I could have spent my time on. Sometimes life is not about <i>doing</i> but simply about <i>loving</i>. It was far more important for me to spend my week cuddling and caring for my children than any other activity I could have filled my time with.Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-45168920909843150712015-02-09T12:54:00.000-05:002015-02-09T12:54:53.806-05:00Essay: How to slide down a hill<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Maria</u></div>
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My favorite way to go down a snowy hill is to sled. My favorite way to go down a grassy hill is to roll. Well why write about it? you may ask. Because this is why. Because if you wanted to play and you had to work which would you do work or play?(I would rather work how about you?).</div>
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Good Bye.</div>
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Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-89359659043387546912015-02-05T10:15:00.000-05:002015-02-05T10:15:13.107-05:00Essay: Do not want to do it<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Maria</u></div>
I do not like to try something new especially if I do not want to do it. Well, this is an example: one day I, did not want to try taking out the trash. Then that evening I threw a fit because I did not think I,could PUT AWAY THE TRASH CAN.I had the fit three minutes.<br />
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THE END. GOOD BYE .</div>
Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321892017148072359.post-18983524042221128402015-02-04T11:04:00.000-05:002015-02-04T11:04:39.113-05:00Essay: How to Wash DishesMy daughters were ecstatic when I told them they could publish their writing essays on my blog. Maybe many more of their essays will appear in the future, if they continue to find the exercise interesting.<br />
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Maria is in 2nd grade and Reese is in 1st. We edited their essays for spelling errors and as a tool to teach them mechanics of good writing (i.e. capitalize the first word of each sentence).<br />
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<u>Maria</u><br />
I LOVE to wash Dishes. (Really i do not ). I could wash them all day. (not really) . But one day I remembered a technique.This is the technique. First you take water and let the dishes soak for 10 minutes. Than you take soap and scrub for 50 minutes. Last you take water and soak for 1 hour than you turn off the faucet and dry for 100 minutes.(I have never tried it).<br />
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The End.(THE END .THE END .THE END).</div>
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<u>Reese</u></div>
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How to wash dishes</div>
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First you bring the soap then you bring the water then you wash the dishes in the sink. </div>
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(THE END. THE END. THE END)</div>
Estherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15317051622161513965noreply@blogger.com0