Pumpkin Muffins~Living the Sweet Life

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”
~Henry David Thoreau, quote from Walden~ 

I’m one of those writers that needs to totally immerse herself in life to have anything worthwhile to say. Only in doing that, do I come back to myself. Henry David Thoreau needed to escape to Walden’s pond and connect with the simple rhythm of the world in order to find himself. I on the other hand, need to be enveloped in chaos, before enlightenment captures my soul.

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here. You know you have found your passion in life, when time is meaningless when you are doing what you love, or when you are where you desire to be. For me, when I’m with my busy family, deep in the garden or sitting on my yoga mat, I am inspired. What is your passion…when are you on kairos (heaven’s) time?

When there is so much to say, the words fly off my keys and my heart sings. It’s been such a busy fall, helping the kids transition back into school, and adjust to their extra curricular activities. I have hardly had a moment to contemplate life. In living it, the richness rushes forth. This is really two blogs in one since so much has occurred. Is it REALLY the middle of November already? Well, if you have a few minutes and want to catch up on life around here, grab a cup of tea and join me. First, here are some images that encapsulate fall 2015.

 

Grace and Will off to catch the bus in October…thankfully it stops at the bottom of our property!

 

The little girls started ballet this fall and they love to dance…everywhere! Victoria who couldn’t skip when she started worked so hard and in slow motion she went around the house, knee up, hop on straight leg, foot down, lift other knee up, hop, foot down….finally she got it and now skips all the time.

 

Will started cello lessons this fall and this time, I’m learning with him on Mitchell’s cello…we are working on hot cross buns and twinkle twinkle right now

We celebrated David’s birthday just before our Canadian thanksgiving weekend

Found this car wash in Surrey B.C. when we went to the coast to do some shopping….we call Harrison, “Harry.” I made David go around the block to capture this picture of our Harry and “Good Clean Fun!”…if you knew what a great sense of humour our 16 year old has….you would totally understand…plus he’s a great kid!

While we did take the kids to the coast to do some back to school shopping…yes I KNOW we were late for that…but anyway, the little kids hated shopping and the only redeeming thing was finding this dog mannequin at the Old Navy store.They could care less about clothes…hence you see them wearing the same dresses and leggings in this picture that they always wear, ….but you know, kids really get it….you don’t need a ton of clothes, just fun experiences in life.

 

The best part of the trip was going to Stanley Park in Vancouver to see these beautifully carved and painted totems

The really sweet things in life….making memories with family

David savoring being at the edge of the ocean…..our life’s happy place…this is English Bay in Vancouver

A moment before capturing this picture, Grace was at the edge of the beach and a rogue wave covered her feet, drenching her in cold water. She recovered nicely enough to smile for this picture

 

Harrison and Will were finding rocks to skip

 

A highlight of being at English Bay for the little kids was meeting a dog named, “Gracie May.” She wanted to play ball with them but she was very strategic regarding when she would drop the ball. They loved her and her owner was kind to let the children play with her….she said Gracie May enjoyed them very much too by the smile on her face and wag of her tail..

Our last day at the coast and this picture outside of our hotel which also happened to be the same one we came to in the summer when I had my eye surgery….I love Holiday Express for families…..the kids loved the breakfast room and the pool

 

On our drive home we stopped at Hope, where they have the cheapest gas, and also happens to be where I was born and lived for the first 6 years of my life…..do you like the name of the restaurant? That’s sometimes how I feel about my kitchen back at home….drive in and out. ….I love the mountains behind the building…something about mountains and trees is very comforting…we are like Salmon…we return to the home where we are born!

Well, those are a few pictures of moments from fall 2015.

For the last two weeks, blog inspirations have been pouring into my brain, however life endlessly over shadows my ability to sit down and write. Finally, it’s a somewhat quiet Saturday morning. Ha! The kids have been fed. Not by me, but by David, who had to get up early to have the winter tires put on our van. This is one of those chores that are in the guy realm as far as I’m concerned. Not that I don’t know how to change a tire, thanks to my brother in law J, who taught me by making me rotate the tires on my first car many years ago. It’s just that I would prefer not to sit around a drafty tire dealership on a Saturday morning and for some reason this doesn’t bother David.

Anyway, the little kids are still in their jammies playing, and by the sounds of it are having a rousing card game of “Fish,” in the family room. As I type, this is what I can hear, Will: “Do you have any 8’s?” Girls: “Go Fish!” Will: “Kate, you do SO have an 8 because I just saw one.” Kate; “Ohhhhh okay,” and then silence. The little girls are just four but they have known their numbers since they were 2….I would highly recommend introducing the leapfrog “Numberland” DVD to your little ones if they are interested in learning numeracy. Kids naturally like to count things, their collection of rocks, their teddies, their cars….Anyway.

Where was I? oh yes, after a lovely bath, where I was able to linger for a decadent 10 minute soak before guilt enveloped me, I thought I’d better get dressed. I gathered my thick, white spa like robe if you will, around me and was planning to get dressed but entering our bedroom, the ruffled and comfy looking bed covers called to me. I plunked down on our yet unmade bed, pulled my laptop out form underneath, where I had left it the night before after doing my 21 day mediation with Deepak and Oprah who are with me, each night before going to sleep. (check out the link…this month it’s on….become what you believe)

 

What we believe about life and ourselves has tremendous power…believe life is sweet and you will receive only that…a sweet life

Once I had the laptop turned on I madly start to type, my fingers flying on the keyboard. There is so much to share and so little time.

My son Harrison just passed my room and asked, “blog?” and I uttered ahum….hopefully he will entertain his brother and sisters with some more card games, while he eats his breakfast and I can get this written. It can’t wait another day.

First, since it’s been so long since I wrote, and this is a “homestead blog,” I wanted to share with you something that has saved me a lot of time putting my garden to bed this fall. When the nights became too cold and my plants were obviously not producing any longer, (end of Oct here) I harvested what I could salvage. I picked the last of the tomatoes, peppers, brought in my spaghetti squash and pumpkins, dried as many herbs as I could; parsley, rosemary, oregano, basil, lemon balm, peppermint, sage etc. and picked the last of my kale, spinach, swiss chard. Which in short order, will turn to mush otherwise and I want to have my “own” organic greens for my fall smoothies. I also was mindful to save more seeds, like my beans, pumpkin, squash, and flower seeds that I wanted to grow again next year. Both marigolds and nasturtium are easy to direct sow in spring. This sounds like a lot but in actuality, I went out for an hour or so each day and accomplished a lot in 2 weeks.

Careful to save some pumpkin and squash seeds to plant next year

 

I put my surplus pumpkin seeds in a large bowl, added some olive oil, garlic powder, cumin and a bit of real chili peppers….see peppers also drying to the right and dried them for 8 hours….what a yummy snack full of fibre! Next year I’m going to double the spices though….more garlic…but then I like more garlic on everything…maybe some nutritional yeast would be a nice cheesy taste too.

(Check out this blog for the benefits of eating pumpkin seeds…The Sprouting Seed)

After this final harvest and gathering, I cut down my plants and let them sit and begin the decomposition process for about a week. Once they withered to 1/2 their size, I transferred the remains to my compost bin. All of our pumpkins also went into the compost bin….it’s AMAZING how much a square bin can hold. I finally ran out of room though so rather than bagging it and sending it off to our landfill, I waited until the remaining crops had decomposed a bit more and gently dug a few holes in my garden and  raked everything remaining into the hole. Then covered it up with dirt. (none of these plants were diseased)

leaves on top of our many pumpkins…this will make such great soil for next year’s garden

I also mowed my lawn as late as I could, catching the grass clippings and also the leaves that had fallen, which saved a lot of raking. These mulched down nicely and again, I  gently dug a few holes. This time into the part of my garden that needed more amendment. The denser soil with rockier aspects would really benefit from this mulch. When I started my garden several years ago, it was hard to find a worm, but over the years by using this method each fall and also adding grass mulch around the plants throughout the growing season, I found that my soil is now rich with earth worms.

The black plastic compost bin that we use for composting kitchen scraps was also full, so I decided to also dig a few extra holes and over the last few weeks, I have been putting my kitchen scraps along with some raked leaves in the holes and also covering them with soil. This process is called, “trench composting.”  and is very effective.

I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to drop a bucket full of kitchen scraps; egg shells, potato and carrot peelings, the core of apples and pears, banana peels, David’s coffee grounds. It puts a smile on my face because not only am I feeding my worms and all the various other organisms in the soil but I’m saving my landfill from needless waste. To think of planting my next year seeds and started plants into rich, fluffy soil is thrilling to me. Am I weird?

I want to also thank my sons Harrison and Will for digging in the last of the garden waste. I had left many of the tomato plants for them to dig into the ground and it was really lovely watching them work together in the garden. Sometimes it’s good not to do it all yourself!

Anyway, if you are wanting to save yourself some time this fall, think about how you are putting your garden to bed and cleaning up your yard. Make it easy for yourself and follow Mother Natures lead….let in lie where it falls.

So when I wasn’t out doing fall chores, I was in the house doing some fall clean up and de-cluttering. As you know I did our big sweep towards minimalism last Spring but with 8 of us currently living in the home, I have to be diligent, as all sorts of things creep into our house. Plus, the kids grow out of  clothes and I like them to be passed on to others. Several times I took a big bag of clothes to the goodwill and also to some friends who have younger children than ours. It’s always a nice feeling to clear house and know things aren’t going to waste sitting in a box somewhere.

What else was going on this fall, oh yes, Halloween. This year, I was really wanting to keep the expense down but the little girls didn’t want to wear anything in our dress up trunk, even though I tried valiantly to persuade them into being princesses, AGAIN. Thankfully, Gymboree had all their costumes on 50% off and we picked up a cute garden fairy and butterfly costume for something that I felt was reasonable. Plus, the upside is they can wear them for dress up all year and then hopefully switch costumes that the other didn’t wear next year.

I wished I had had better lighting…my old camera had broken early this fall and most of my fall pictures are not great….but you get the sense of their costumes etc….Kate is the butterfly and Victoria the Garden Fairy

Will was harder to convince. He didn’t want to be a knight, a pirate, a king, a ninja, or a wizard, all costumes we had in stock. When we took him to the store he couldn’t find anything he was remotely interested in until one day, driving by the 7 Eleven, he asked yet again if he could have one last Slurpee before winter arrived. I uttered the words he knew were coming, “sorry NO,” but suddenly a light went off and I uttered these words, “Will,….. would you like it if I made you a Slurpee costume for Halloween?”

His face lit up immediately and said excitedly, “Yes, that would be GREAT!” Then, as I continued to drive, I wondered  how in the heck was I going to pull this one off. Thank heavens for “Google,” and the fact that I was not the only parent in the world who had the same idea.

Here is one picture I found that gave me the inspiration to use a pool noodle for the straw and tulle netting material for the Slurpee frothing out of the top of the cup…. I used the Medium size Slurpee cup as the model for Will’s cup design

Although ours turned out nothing like anything I saw, nor were the materials the same. Our costume cost less than $10.00. We used two full sheets of blue poster board, inserted some white paper on the sides to give the cup some shape, rolled white paper and taped it at the top to resemble the cup lip.  I then hand drew and cut the cup’s design from construction paper we had on hand and printed off and glued the 7 eleven logo on the cup. It looked really authentic.

Sorry again about the light in this picture…did I tell you for my birthday I got a new camera?…but sadly I have missed capturing some great shots of Will’s Slurpee costume….but this one does give you the idea

(As much as my little guy loves a good slush drink….here’s the down low on them, sugar is the least of the negatives…7 Reasons to never drink Slurpees)

The final touches were adding the red tulle netting coming out the top of the cup and yellow straw (pool noodle). Finishing it all off, I painted the words, “so Chill,” on Will’s cheeks and the costume was complete. He wore it to his school’s costume parade on the Friday before Halloween and had many compliments. I think I accomplished my goal of keeping some of the costs down for our kids, to celebrate what they have come to think of as the most fun “holiday” of the year.

 

Sadly, this is the best picture I have of Will….of course he was just hopping around here before going out on Halloween…it’s hard to capture a Slurpee blur even with the best camera.

I’m not so crazy about Halloween. It’s not the idea of it being spooky or anything like that. Some parents I spoke to before the event said they didn’t approve of it for religious reasons. Another, said she didn’t like the idea of kids going around begging for candy…although it doesn’t have to be candy is what I told her…it can be a pencil, some stickers, a bag of healthy popcorn. I remember as a child loving to dress up in something that dragged along the ground appearing older than I was, in disguise if you like. Also, it was just plain fun being out when it was dark, the air crisp and cold with the pungent smell of burning pumpkin in the air.

The day before Halloween I decorated our front door with pumpkin lights, a new black spider (made from a black garbage bag stuffed with newspaper….the legs are strips of garbage bag and are really scary as they blow around at night) and some cobwebs…oh and of course we had pumpkins scattered every where in our front yard. We are also one of those houses that play scary music…..sounds like the soundtrack to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

As a parent, I’m just not a fan of the sugary treats. Now I know that is part of the allure for children. It was for me too as a child, although my bag was usually full of apples, peanuts in the shell and those stick in your teeth caramel kisses. I’m dating myself. Of course apples would get thrown out now for fear of razor blades and peanuts are a complete no, no, due to nut allergies being so prolific. But there has to be a middle ground right?

Although as a parent, we can all choose how to handle the candy once received. One parent I know buys the candy, in exchange for a toy. Another set of parents I know, put all the candy into a communal pot and only pull it out once a week on their family movie night. And yet another parent told me that she lets her kids have totally autonomy over their treats. She felt that taking away sugar would only create a hyper desire for it and it would be good for them to learn how it feels to overdose on it. She was using it as a teaching moment….by the way, she is a health care nurse.

All these ideas were interesting. What we have chosen to do over the years is talk to our children about what we love about Halloween and what we don’t. Teach them about the downsides to sugary treats and how it adversely affects our bodies even though it tastes good. My mother lived a good long life and I like her motto…”everything in moderation.” Upon coming home from trick or treating, we let our children sort through the treats and then we help them choose a few treats they could eat during our fireworks display which is held at the beach below our house. Since we live in the sub-division right above the beach, we have first class seats for this affair. It’s the highlight of the evening in my books.

It’s also been our tradition to make my classic sugar cookies, sometimes a pumpkin pie or carrot cake. If we know we are having friends over we  make a big bowl of homemade popcorn and invite them to join us for the viewing. This year Grace had a friend sleepover since it was a Saturday night. After the fireworks, they had a hot tub and then went down to our Hobbit’s hollow media room to watch a scary movie.

 

My classic pumpkin sugar cookies….and the little ghost Will had made in his grade one class

This year Grace made up her own costume, she was dressed up like a scary Victorian doll…although her ringlets had already dropped in this picture….she is on the left if you don’t recognize her. Apparently she wasn’t scary enough as several of our neighbours told us that they saw her when we came around with the little kids

Well, that was our Halloween….but getting back to the sugar, it seems like the smaller the child is, the more our neighbours heap upon them. They get extra if they have a great costume too. So our little ones ended up with a lot of treats. After they emptied their treat bags, I put the candy into a large basket for each of them and after dinner each evening, instead of having our usual dessert of fruit, or baked goods, they got to choose 2 candies. What I liked about this was right after eating their candy, they had their bath and their teeth were brushed before bedtime story time.

What I didn’t like about it was that our son Will, who seems to react quickly to any onslaught of sugar, was a bit wild during bath and teeth brushing time. Thankfully, by the time we all pile into bed for story time he had settled down but David and I always steeled ourselves with tons of patience for what we knew was coming after the consumption of sugar.

Then this past week, yes 10 days to 14 days after Halloween 3 of our youngest 4 came down with colds/flues despite the fact that I had started giving them their fall/winter dose of cod liver oil. Each year it arrives like clockwork. When I went to the school this past Thursday to pick up Will after he had thrown up, (apparently he had coughed so deeply that this had occurred) I came upon our school Principal who was cleaning up the aftermath, (the janitors don’t work during the day apparently) and I told him that I was so sorry but it always seems to occur 10 to 14 days after the start of the big consumption of Halloween sugar. He agreed that the sugar doesn’t help the immune system one bit.

Yesterday Grace stayed home from school. A child that normally has perfect attendance and last night after reading stories, Kate promptly threw up on my bedroom floor as she was heading off to bed (thank heavens we have wood floors!) By the sounds of the kids this morning, everyone seems to have recovered nicely. Will still has his cough but they are all making enough noise to assume they are well. Isn’t it amazing how fast kids start to feel better. They have their usual BIG energy back which makes me happy but it has inspired me to write a post about sugar….it’s merits and it’s downside. It’s really NOT the sweet part of life but our food industry makes us think it’s nothing.

Before the kids had even gotten sick I was doing some research on the topic and found a great documentary produced by our CBC’s Fifth Estate. A production called, “The Secret of Sugar.” It was so well done they even won an international Emmy award for the documentary. Although I knew that sugar wasn’t good for our bodies, or our brains for that matter, after watching this documentary it was truly alarming that our food industry is being so insidious and has no conscience with regards to our children or human kind as a whole. It’s all about money isn’t it?

If you haven’t watched this, I would encourage you to do so and with our mass buying power we can perhaps influence food production and the ingredients that go into our food.

Here’s the link..it’s fascinating. (See the hyper link above if you can’t click on the link below) to see “The Secret of Sugar.”

Now after this eye opening documentary, I thought I would share a link to an article on the best sugar alternatives. Some people don’t realize there are other choices to sugar other than perhaps honey. You can choose to use agave nectar, black strap molasses (which most of our grandparents used) or maple syrup and then there is also raw cane sugar which is not as refined a white sugar but still not any better for you. Something I know my oldest daughter would approve us is dates to sweeten anything….one of her fav treats are dates. Personally, the closer to nature our food is is the healthiest choice and then perhaps reducing the amount we use and getting accustom to a less sugary taste.

I have to laugh after saying this, because on Remembrance Day this past week, I made a big dinner and then baked pies for dessert. Something my family hardly ever gets. I paid a lot of attention to making the apple pie because I haven’t made many apple pies in my life, but when it came to the pumpkin, I kind of threw it together as I have made dozens of these over the years. I am kind of known for my excellent pumpkin pies, sorry if that sounds kind of braggy…the key was using more pumpkin pie filling and less sugar in my books.

Anyway, I was so proud of these pies and after dinner many decided they were going to have a piece of each but when my family dug into the pumpkin they all made a face. I had chosen to have just a piece of apple so I didn’t know what they were talking about until I took a little taste and then I flashed back to my pumpkin mixture and realized, I had totally forgotten the sugar. It wasn’t bad per say….just, well, really pumpkiny and not what you would expect. Me laughing, remembering Grace’s face after taking a big bite.

So the point of all this is it’s nice to make some of our food taste a bit sweeter for a treat, but each of us has to decide how sweet and what we are going to sweeten our food with. If I had had enough maple syrup on hand, I think I would have added that to my pie for a change and I’m sure it would have enhanced the flavour beautifully.

Here’s the link to Best Sugar Alternatives article and I’m prefacing it here before I give you my pumpkin muffin recipe so you can choose what you want to put in your muffins…maybe a healthier choice than sugar.

And now, if I haven’t spooked you into baking, I’m going to share my pumpkin muffin recipe. I made it for my children’s pajama day at their Kindermusik class. I wanted something that was breakfasty as their class is later in the morning and also something that said, “this is autumn time.”  It was the day before Halloween and the little girls were getting really excited about dressing up in their new costumes.

Victoria is all dressed for jammy day and ready to go to her music class…she is an admirer of muffins

The girls eating the muffins later in the morning at the music school’s Kindermusik class

My kids are starting to look a bit orange as they have been eating a lot of pumpkin, squash and carrots this fall…..maybe they would have gotten even sicker had they not be pumped with so many great foods. (not to even mention all the green drinks we consume) I guess what it all comes down to in life is balance. Healthy foods and always making choices to move towards a better option, not just for our health but for the benefits of our children’s growing bodies.

 

 

 

If you want to try a really great harvest type comfort food…try these moist muffins.

Hope’s Pumpkin Muffins