Can you believe it’s only a month until Christmas? It doesn’t feel as if we are moving any closer to the winter solstice, since in my part of the world, (Okanagan Valley, in southern British Columbia) we are experiencing a lovely, sunny November. Usually it’s rainy, sometimes snowy, and definitely cold this time of year. The days are getting shorter though and our nights extremely chilly, still I’m not complaining. I have heaps of leaves to shred and compost directly into my garden, which is going to create light and fluffy soil next spring.
This fall I’ve been digging holes all over my garden, adding kitchen scraps and leaves and then covering them up….this is called trench composting and makes GREAT soil.Thank you to my sister J for the garlic bulbs…Victoria helped me plant them this fall…pointed side up!
I’ve been thinking of Christmas though. When you are the mom to eight children who’ve all enjoyed a few Christmas treats and surprises in the past, you have to start planning early. I’m absolutely thrilled to say that seven of our eight kids will be home for the holidays. Sadly, our son Mitchell won’t be able to come home but I’m happy he’s making friends in Australia, where he has been living since last March. I know wherever he is, joy will find him and wherever I am, a piece of him is always with me.
Anyway, with almost everyone coming home and only a month to go, I’ve been thinking about how I want to celebrate the season. I know we want to continue to move away from a consumer driven holiday, since we have been going down that path for several years now, but this year, I still don’t know how that will look. With my desire for a zero waste holiday, more vegetarian fare, and emphasis on spending time, instead of money, my intention is to unplug the Christmas machine.
While talking to people and doing workshops over the years, on how to create a more meaningful holiday, these two authors have written a book filled with thoughtful and practical advice on how to have a joy filled Christmas.
One of their workshop attendees shared this thought, “When spirituality leaves the holiday in favour of materialism, it leaves a very large hole.”
Spirituality means different things to different people, but in my case I was thinking about the magic of the season, versus the stuff and that resonated with me.
I particularly liked their Christmas Pledge. It read like this:
(Believing in the true Spirit of Christmas, I commit myself to:)
Remember those people who truly need my gifts
Express my love in more direct ways than gifts
Examine my holiday activities in the light of my deepest values
Be a peacemaker within my circle of family and friends
Rededicate myself to my spiritual growth
I’ve thought about each of the above statements and ways I could incorporate them into my holiday celebrations. For instance, this year we ordered seven poinsettia plants to give to our children’s teachers. All the funds raised will go to a less fortunate school’s parent advisory group in our area. That makes me really happy as it’s giving to those less fortunate. Also, I like the idea of giving a living plant to our children’s teachers as they help our children to bloom and grow and it’s in keeping with my concerns for the environment.
Then, like an affirmation that I was on the right path, this morning, while pulling apart my little girls bedding to be aired in the sunshine, I found my daughter’s holiday wish list hidden under her pillow.
It said, “Kathryn’s Christmas Wish list”
Whole family to come home
Flannel Sheets
Headbands
Arts and Craft (canvas, paints, etc.)
Slippers (bigger size)
2020 calendar (animal, cats, yoga cats)
new p.j.s (Christmas ones)
Chocolates
A Christmas surprise
A big huge empty box to play in
The first and last items on her list made me realize that what my daughter wants more than anything is to just be with her family and have open space to create the holiday of her dreams. Easy!~ I can make that happen, literally and figuratively.
Victoria and Kathryn icing the gingerbread cookies they make all by themselves on the weekend….and my girls are now big peppermint tea drinkers too!!Sunshine has been pouring into our house this November
It was her letter that inspired this blog post today. If we truly look inside our hearts, what do we REALLY want for the holidays?
I think we may get confused when we look outside our homes at what other people are choosing to do, and worse, when we venture into any retail outlet. (Why do we do that again???)
While I was doing some recent web surfing for ideas on how to decorate our house for the holidays in an organic and environmentally conscious manner I came across dozens, and I mean DOZENS, of You tube videos of Vloggers inviting you to come into their homes to watch them clean, decorate and then finally tour their home for the holidays. As a voyageur I couldn’t resist. I clicked on several of these links and was taken into another world.
Another world filled with twinkling lights, glitter, and the latest in Christmas decor. I was thinking, does this say, “have yourself a merry little Christmas?” For many it obviously does but I want something different. While I continued to read the book, “Unplug the Christmas Machine,” I realized that this was something I needed to figure out for myself. Each of us is a creator and when we turn inward, we find what is most meaningful to us. And that brings me to the last point on the Christmas Pledge, “To rededicate myself to my spiritual growth.”
Personally for me, it’s not about being in a church any longer, although our church’s Christmas Eve candlelight service is a sweet reminder of Christmas’s past, when I used to sing in the children’s choir after my Dad died and I needed faith so desperately. Or those Christmases when David and I were new parents, often with a December newborn in our arms. We were so grateful for our family. I wanted my children more than anything to hear the story of God’s love and let it fill them with peace and joy. Now, for me at least, I find my way back to my spirit, back to God, when I’m out in nature. I want more of that this holiday season. What would it look like for you?
Bringing nature in to decorate our house makes me happy
Today at my lunch time school gig, I read a story to the kindergarten class I supervise for an hour each day. I read them a story called, “Pig the Elf,” by Aaron Blabey. It’s a hilarious story of two dogs, one humble and sweet, the other greedy and rude. It illustrates beautifully how being grateful and gentle is an easier path, and yet, it’s fun to watch Pig, the Pug take a different approach to Christmas. It reminded me that no matter the path we take as people, and as parents, lessons abound and to just relax and enjoy the journey. Hopefully, an angel saves us. Check out the YouTube video below to hear the story. I hope it makes you laugh as much as my kindergarteners did at lunch today.
Well, at the very least I hope this blog post gets you thinking about how you want to spend your holidays and the memories you want to create for your family. In the next few weeks, I want to share our journey with you. As our days grow shorter and darkness descends, I want the upcoming season to be filled with light. To be filled with love. For me and for you.
Thank you for visiting today. I hope you find some time to come back soon and we can chat about ways to stay well this winter..
Until we meet again, may you be well, peaceful and happy.
Blessings from Hope…..and……….
P.S. ………..
Another birthday celebration to declare,
it’s my sister C’s birthday I want to share.
Peace and joy, love and delight,
C, if you are reading this,
You make the world bright!
Ok, I never said I was a poet, ha!….but I wanted to reach out and say……
Shine On! Happy Birthday from me to you! Love D.L. a.k.a. Hope
From left to right….my sister C, my sister J, and me in the blue….C and I share November birthdays! Happy Birthday C!I wanted to include this picture as it’s a good one of J and she told me she only wants me to post good pictures of her….I think this one is great of all of us.
With a steaming mug of pumpkin spice tea next to me, I’m joining you once again. Two seasons have passed since my last blog post. I had material a plenty but felt I needed time to just be in the moment. Instead of capturing and posting life, or writing down my thoughts in words, I wanted to just be.
As a family we were also busy. Our spring flew by, while I worked at my gardening gig and as I finished up the school year working as a lunch time student supervisor. Our twin daughters, Kathryn and Victoria, turned eight in May. Our youngest son William turned the grand ole age of ten at the end of June.
Our daughters turn eight….they say it’s their lucky number. Happy Birthday Kathryn and Victoria
Happy Birthday William….celebrating with a huge strawberry shortcake…double digits now, big 10!
Blue skies and warm days met us all through our summer. Thankfully we didn’t experience the choking smoke from forest fires, since rain scattered through our warm months like a welcome blessing. Our garden flourished; our cherries were luscious, and as summer came to an end, Italian prune plums abundantly filled buckets.
Kathryn and Victoria (and Coco) weeding the gardenluscious cherries Cherry pies…yumOur two trees produced buckets of prune plums late this summerDavid spent every free moment working on yard projects
We accomplished many projects as well. David built a rail styled fence along our garden and then created a lattice privacy wall at the end of our swimming hole. He painted the pool house and the play house and then built a set of steps up the middle of our rock wall.
Our new privacy screen (painted pool house)New fence and abundant garden once againI can’t find the picture with the finished stairs but here’s a picture showing the start of them………the kids spent all their time in the pool, working on their strokes, dives and here Victoria is just floating on her back
While he was building, I painted. Steps, fences, and benches. When I wasn’t covered in paint, I was deep in the garden harvesting and canning or freezing food.
Cherries, and more cherries for the freezer and in jars
William went to camp, the little girls had a mid summer’s eve party, Grace worked at the water slides and our oldest son came home from University and worked as a landscaper once again.
We were blessed with food from our gardenThe girls say goodbye to their brother who was off to Eagle Bay camp for a week….his first time away from home…a BIG deal. He was missed!Grace spent the summer working at the water slides earning money to go to the U.K. in spring of 2020….it was hot work but it will be a trip of a lifetimeThe kids were thrilled to have their big brother home for the summer…Clark worked really hard but hopefully next summer he will be pushing a pen since he is currently in his second year of law school this year
Mid summer, we had a lovely respite when we took the family to Vancouver Island for a weeks get away. We picked up our oldest daughter in Victoria and headed up Island where we set up a base camp at Rathtrevor Beach in Parksville. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and perfect for a camping holiday. The days were warm enough to swim in the ocean and during the evenings we happily gorged on s’mores around the camp fire.
Kathryn, Victoria, and William love the ferry to Vancouver Island..the weather is gorgeous!Our day at Long Beach….Amazing warm dayThere is something so restorative about digging your feet into ocean sandWe needed this holiday as a family, as a couple.Cathedral Grove…one of the giants. Pray for our trees and our children
We were able to visit all of our favourite haunts too; Qualicum Beach, Coombs, (Goats on the Roof Country Market) Englishman Falls, Cathedral Grove Forest and we had an amazing, warm sunny day at Long Beach and Tofino, on the west side of the island.
All spring and early summer I’d been feeling off balanced. As if I was walking on a long, narrow board and at any time I would fall and crash. I pushed myself along but the fear of falling stayed with me all through spring and summer. That trip to the island helped to restore my soul but I still felt off centre and sad. I couldn’t explain why because I was so grateful for so much in my life…but a dark feeling persisted.
With every march, and every speech I heard her give I realized that a heavy stone, holding down the hope I had for our children’s future and the health of our earth was being lifted. (I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was feeling unbalanced from all the negative voices in the world, fighting “against” climate action) Also, I felt like we, as a family were not moving fast enough to help the earth. Yes earlier in the year we had cancelled our garbage pick up but we were stalled on our path towards a zero waste lifestyle. We weren’t where I wanted to be.
But as my heart opened and balance returned, I realized that I was being too hard on myself and I wouldn’t be able to take any action if I didn’t have hope. This blog is all about hope. This blog is about inspiring others to live a more sustainable life, connecting with others while helping our planet. If I didn’t have hope, I had nothing to write about. Greta gave me back hope.
And here I am today, drinking tea and writing, while my youngest make gingerbread cookies.
On this chilly November day, nothing makes me happier than a cup of tea Kathryn and Victoria decided it was the perfect day to make some gingerbread…who am I to argue?
And while I’m still not where I want to be in all areas, when I look back at where we used to be ten years ago, I know that progress is more important than perfection.
Fall has nourished me with the reminder that each season has it’s own gifts. As the days grow shorter, my energy is restored. My heart is open. I’m excited again about the ways we can make a difference in our own home. And I see I’m not alone. At our children’s school there is now a compost bin in each classroom. There are fewer buses and more children riding their bikes to school. There is less paper coming home in backpacks. Our community is coming together. Greta has us talking about ways we can make progress towards helping our environment and that’s inspiring.
Well, my tea cup is almost empty, so our visit is coming to a close but I know I will visit with you again soon…..if this is a place that you find nourishing too, please come back for a visit. I wanted to share with you a few things that we are doing again this year to have a less consumer driven holiday. I love Christmas and the joy the season brings but I want to teach my children that it’s not about what’s wrapped in a present. It’s not about decorating our house to the nines. It’s not about looking perfect or attending every party and event. It’s about the gift of love we give each other. Also, Christmas is about finding hope again.
With hope we find a place of balance.
I hope this blog can be a place of balance to nourish your soul too.
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Blessings from Hope
P.S. Sending a birthday wish off to a dear one in my life. Happy Birthday Danielle. May you know how much you are loved! May a balanced life always be yours! (I wrote this blog post on Nov 23….but it’s shown as being posted on Nov 24th…the joy of blogging)
Danielle and our son Harrison celebrating a special dinner last February 14th.
“I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.” -Henry David Thoreau
In my last post, I wrote about the challenge that David Suzuki’s Foundation is asking us to participate in starting today, May 1st; to spend 30 minutes a day in nature for 30 days to kick-start a nature habit that lasts all year-round. The thought is, if we connect with nature, we will do anything to fight for the health of our planet.
Yeah!
I thought I would kick things off here on my blog, by sharing an incredible documentary called, “Call of the Forest, The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees.” Have you heard of it? Ever since visiting my sister C last fall, I’ve been looking for this documentary she mentioned about how the world depends on our forests. Well Duh…but I wanted to learn more. Is this the documentary you were talking about C? I don’t know about you but when I’m in a forest, or even sitting next to one solitary tree, I’m grounded. I feel peaceful and when I reluctantly get up to leave, I feel balanced. AMAZING! It’s not surprising then to learn, without our forests, all life as we know it will end. Do you think the general population knows about this? It’s crucial then for us to share this fact and as communities across the globe, we start to restore our forests and conserve the ones that remain.
The woods are wise and are ready to share their wisdom. All we have to do is listen
Sometimes the problem may feel bigger than us and we may feel hopeless but as the Canadian botanist, Diana Beresford-Kroeger, who wrote, “The Global Forest,” says in the “Call to the Forest” documentary, “if everyone planted one tree a year, for six years, a native species in a native space , then climate change could be reversed.”
Wow….I can do that!
“And for every breath we take, thank a tree.” So there is still hope.
Do you want to start May 2019 by watching this documentary with me? Trust me when I say, it will blow your mind~ and also may inspire you to make changes in the way you live. Although we can petition our government to ensure our forests are preserved, I believe the real power is within each of us to connect with our communities, taking steps to restore our forests and maintain the ones in our area. Another simple thing we can all do is use the search engine “Ecosia.” Have you heard of it? It’s a search engine that uses some of their profits to plant trees all over the world. Click on the link above to read more. This is one small way to help our planet. Another is being mindful of our carbon footprint. The lighter we walk on this earth, means less resources are needed and forests remain intact.
Imagine, every time you search the net, you help to plant trees! I love it!
Come and celebrate the month of May with me. It’s the perfect season to plant trees and is also a great time to head outside, do some forest bathing (watch the documentary to hear more about that) and have a love fest in nature. When you come home from your nature hike, feeling restored and healthy, check out this incredible documentary and share it with your friends and family around the world. Let’s get grounded and save our forests.
I wanted to proclaim this, “Happy Earth Day,” but how can we be happy, when our planet is suffering from our pollution and exploitation of her resources. If you want to read more regarding the state of our planet, check out this link to the “Vox,” site and the article called, “7 things we’ve learned about Earth since the last Earth day.”
I’m telling you…..
Times up.
Mother Earth is dying.
We have to take action.
But what can we do?
Yesterday, instead of our usual Easter Egg hunt in our back yard, we took our children to nearby Ellison Provincial Park, for an afternoon hike. Instead of finding foil wrapped, chocolate eggs, we had our children count how many wild flowers they could find, how many varieties of lichen and moss were in the forest and asked them to identify the different kinds of trees they recognized along the way.
William, Victoria, Kathryn and Grace….at the top of the Nature Trail over looking Okanagan LakeVictoria said, this hike was way better than any foil WRAPPED, chocolate egg she would receive on an Easter egg hunt…finding pine cones was the real treasure…we left them behind btwThis picture was snapped after the kids had a packed lunch down at the lake…on their rock!Grace was luminous…no phone in sight…sometimes I think teenagers need Nature the mostDavid’s been working so hard, at his office and painting our house…we both needed this day at the lake and the hike up the mountain
The animation and joy never left our children’s faces throughout the afternoon. After enjoying the lunch I packed; veggie filled sandwiches, kettle chips, carrots and snap peas, on rocks next to the lake, we headed up the mountain. With each oxygen rich breath, my mind felt clearer. Grace and William took the lead and were quickly out of sight, exploring ahead but the little girls stayed with us on the trail. They took turns reading the various signs, placed throughout the park’s trail, educating us all with wonder on the flora and fauna we were enjoying.
Then, around a bend, the rich, green colour from the trees and the ground dotted with yellow and white wildflowers ended, as we were hit with a stand of blackened and dead trees. The once lush hillside, now dry and desolate, the chirping, bird sounds distant. The little girls were horrified at the devastation left by a forest fire, which I’d remembered ravaged part of the park a summer or two ago. Their faces told everything they were feeling, great sadness. This was the perfect opportunity, as we walked through the bare and darkened land, to talk about the health of our environment and how global warming was affecting not just our area, but the whole world. It was also a time to explain about forest renewal after a forest fire, and remind them how resilient the Earth is with a little help from us.
I think before real change can happen in the world, we need people to fall back in love with our Earth. That’s why David Suzuki Foundation’s, “The One Nature Challenge,” is so brilliant. The foundation is challenging us to spend 30 minutes a day, for 30 days, starting on May 1st, 2019. Their goal is simple;
To reconnect human beings with nature for the sake of their health and mental well-being.
At the bottom of the web sites are these words; “If you love nature, nature will love you back.” Doesn’t that say it all? Check out the link above, if you want to read more about this challenge. You don’t have to head to the forest like we did yesterday, although that would be great if you could. For those living in an urban area, head to a park, sit against a tree, let the energy rise up from it’s roots and restore you.
On the drive home from our hike, our daughter Victoria exclaimed, “that was so much better than any old Easter egg hunt,” The rest of the kids chimed in agreement on that sentiment. Then we started talking about things we can do to really make a change to help our environment.
One thing we can do is be conscious consumers and this is my focus.
During a visit at the beginning of the year, I’d asked my sister J, if she and my brother in law, B, had made any New Year’s resolutions. She inspired me with her plan to reduce their use of plastics. In their quiet way, they are always showing me a greener path. Not purchasing food wrapped in plastic was a big one. We were talking about all the sorts of veggies that are wrapped and re wrapped in non-usable plastic. One being cucumbers. For J’s birthday, I went to our local Farm Bound store that supports the organic food industry and provided zero waste products. I bought her a net bag, some cloth bags for produce, or dried goods, and those really cool waxed paper sheets that can be reused and reused. They smell heavenly of beeswax.
I think watching what we consume is a crucial first step as we have power in what we choose to purchase. A real zero waste lifestyle is easier when we buy products already in nature’s wrapping; bananas, watermelons, cantaloupes, oranges, lemons, etc. And when we can’t do that, bringing along our own bags or jars to fill is a rocking way to move closer to zero waste. Eating primarily a plant based diet is another win/win.
Hey, and on the topic of win/win, we save money and the planet, when we make our own household products like laundry soap, cleaning products and shampoo, which you can find more about under my eco- living pages.. I’ve recently read that China is changing their plastic recycling policies. If we thought our plastics in our recycling bins were magically being turned into toys etc, we better wake up. If no one is doing anything with the over abundance of plastic, where is it going? It’s everywhere now, and worse of all, it’s in the oceans and on our beaches killing aquatic life.
plastic is killing our oceans and aquatic life
I’ve been extremely conscious of our waste, in my haste to declutter our home, but I’m not fooling myself thinking all our stuff is just poof, going away….no, it’s somewhere on the earth. It makes me sick. I’d like to think our old clothes and toys etc are being used by others but more and more I read that that is not the case. As everyone is doing what I am in North America.
So finally, on this Earth day, we are doing the big, BIG, thing. Drum roll please, for I know it’s not going to be easy changing our lifestyle.
We have cancelled our garbage pick up.
I’ve been wanting to cut our garbage for a long time now but as long as that green, garbage truck rolls into our neighbourhood every Wednesday, making our can’s contents magically disappear, we never seemed to make much headway in that department. Not any longer! You’d think my husband had brought me diamonds home the day he announced that he’d cancelled our garbage pick up. Finally! He did what I’ve been moaning about for awhile now. Don’t you just love a man of action! We are now going to have to face our waste. It’s going to be stinking up our garage otherwise. Our composting will be in full tilt, our recycling will be scrutinized carefully and we will have to change our consumption habits before bringing anything home from the mall, the grocery stores, even from birthday parties~!
William helps me go through our recycling…it’s still too, too much…and I just hope it gets recycled which is my biggest fear…if it doesn’t, we have too much waste!
I hope to share this journey with you. I can tell you right now we have dropped from two bags a week, to one bag a week. Of course, we have downsized from a family of ten, to a family of six since last September. Although, our older son is coming back from law school next week for the summer and we will be back up to seven in our household, I’m thinking since he has a Science degree,(majoring in earth and environment studies), he’s not going to be a hard sell in helping us reduce our waste.
The dream is to move down from one bag of garbage a week, to one bag a month, and eventually one bag every three months. That would be my dream. Four bags of garbage a year! Although far from a mason jar, like some families, but if we can do four bags of garbage from our current level of 52 per year, wow, oh wow, that would be remarkable. And that is just our family. IMAGINE, if we all dropped our waste to just 10% percent of what we are producing now!!!
Do you want to be inspired by a master of zero waste? Check out Bea Johnson’s book or any of her YouTube videos. She inspired me a few years ago, and this Earth day will be a turning point for our family following in her footsteps. It helps that it’s almost growing season here and much of what we eat will be from our backyard.
Wrapping things up, what can we do?
There is so much…pick what resonates for your family. Walking and riding your bike more, lowering your carbon footprint. Vacationing closer to home, again, reducing high carbon transportation. Eating a plant based diet, or moving towards a zero waste family, as we are now trying to be, which will reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with landfills, and one of the things associated with global warming.
Before I close, I’d like to leave you with this powerful three minute video. David Suzuki tells us, “but you have to have hope,” and Chris Hadfield reminds us, “all the living things on this planet are interconnected.”
“Great things happen when we come together ”
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
This week I discovered that love is perfect. Living life is not.
A week ago, I was thrilled to see the garlic I’d planted last fall starting to take off nicely. The stalks were all greening up and it looked like a good crop was in the works. Then on the weekend, when I was working in the yard, I spied my chickens pecking in my garlic bed.
no!
No!
NO!
Where were my green stalks? EVERY SINGLE stalk was gone!
I could feel the anger rise from my stomach and move throughout my upper body, right up to my neck. Choking me. I had carefully planted the garlic last fall, after sourcing out some organic bulbs. I had almost a whole bed planted and then my sister, J, gave me a bag from their 2018 harvest. I was so happy and able to complete the bed using some of their garlic. I was really looking forward to seeing the results, comparing the two kinds of garlic, later this year.
As I moved towards the raised bed, my chickens seeing me, came running towards me, their wings straight back, their bodies rocking in that silly side to side gait, that usually makes me laugh. They seemed to have big smiles on their faces as they approached. They stopped at my feet and pecked at my shoes.
“Bwok, Bwok,” they said.
Immediately, the heavy feeling I’d felt only moments before dropped and a warm, fuzzy feeling spread through my body. I had to smile and squat down to pet them. Their feathers were so soft and silky. “You are bad, BAD chickens for eating my garlic. But— — but, I still love you,” I told them.
They followed me, like faithful dogs, over to investigate my garlic bed. I noticed it was nicely turned over. So nicely turned over, that a few dried out bulbs were laying on top of the dirt. Moving my hands through the earth, I saw even my garlic bulbs were eaten. They jumped up into the bed, as I investigated their dirty work and seemed to say, “look mom, didn’t we do good?” as they continued to peck and scratch industriously through the bed.
Inhaling and then exhaling a large sigh, I thought about how only a few moments before I had been livid enough to have garlic, infused chicken for dinner. Then something happened.
An awareness washed over me.
My chickens were only doing what chickens do. Scratch, peck, and eat. They are living their life. My reaction to their destruction is just in response to me living my life. I too, want to eat. It’s funny that the smallest creatures often teach the biggest lessons.
Those of you who want to know how to garden with chickens, as in, letting them free range, let me tell you, the two don’t go together well. Our chickens will be three years old in a few days and here is what I have discovered; they will dig up ANYTHING, and love to spread it EVERYWHERE. I like to let them free range, but once I plant seeds, the only time they are able to cruise around freely, is when I’m in the backyard, watching them, ha, like a hawk.
I checked this book out from our local library and it had some great tips for gardening with a free range flock.
This incident got me thinking about another thing that made me angry this week and I wanted to share it with you.
Yes, and if you thought I was this peaceful, omming all the time, relaxed, laid back person, I hate to burst your bubble. HOPE, aka, me, is far from perfect.
F A R………from P E R F E C T!
But I also like to say, “I’m in the process.”
,This week, our neighbouring Province of Alberta, elected Jason Kenney, who is the head of the United Conservative Party in Alberta. One of his main campaign pledges, was to immediately shut off the taps of Alberta’s oil to British Columbia; the Province where I live. He said those words in retaliation for the Trans Mountain expansion project being shut down last year, and it obviously won the majority vote.
If the Trans Mountain expansion gets built it will negativelyimpact the southern resident killer whales
When I heard Kenney’s words, it made me angry. I was mumbling some unkind words about “red necks,” and their “big trucks” but then, that choking feeling rose higher and higher into my throat and I thought about my anger.
Anger doesn’t feel good.
I get where the voting majority of Albertan’s are coming from. (And I know this isn’t everyone…hey I have a son in Edmonton right now) Many are feeling land locked and being held hostage, unable to get their oil to market, which is creating a severe down turn in their economy. And up to fairly recently, they have been riding a wave of prosperity. Of course, they don’t want that to end. What is also unfortunate, is that they are sitting on one of the richest oil reserves in the world.
What are they to do?
What appears to be lacking, at least from my perspective, is their inability to recognize that some of us in B.C. view “our” natural resources, as strongly as they do theirs. Being stewards of our environment, we are hesitant to risk the serious consequences that would occur if there were a spill of bitumen, somewhere in our province or in the ocean. Also, when are the leaders in their Province going to admit that the oil industry is a dead dinosaur, ha. No pun intended. But seriously, there still may be a mass amount of oil in the ground but our earth is telling us loudly, that it can no longer sustain a carbon based society.
And if our planet dies, no amount of money from selling oil is going to help anyone. The health of the planet needs to be a priority. We just need to be creative and find other ways to be productive, without harming the earth, wherever we live. And being angry with one another is not going to take us anywhere.
Last summer, I had to keep our young children inside our home almost all of August, due to the intense smoke created by all the forest fires burning in our Province, which scientist say is a result of Global Warming. Also, our two older sons, who were working an landscapers to save money for their University expenses, would come home nightly, exhausted from the poor air quality, coughing and sputtering. Scientists say it’s only going to continue to get worse.
And where, you may be asking does LOVE, fit into all of this. Well, when I heard Kenney’s words toward British Columbia, I felt the same anger I had felt towards my chickens earlier in the week. Certainly it was stronger since well, a crop of garlic doesn’t compare to the seriousness of the health of our environment, but the feeling of anger was the same. Anger is anger. Also, the awareness that the only way to shift that anger out of my chest, or at least lessen it, was to infuse it with some compassion, which is the first step towards love.
Holding that anger inside would be living imperfectly, but if I shift that feeling slightly to at least compassion for what the Albertan’s are going through economically, I can start feeling the anger lift. If we are always trying to move towards feeling love, then life will be more perfect.
Then it occurred to me that Jason Kenney, with his promise to Albertans, to shut off the flow of oil to our Province, may have shot himself in the foot. I mean if your oil isn’t available, we are going to either find other oil sources, or we are going to move quickly to alternate, greener, energies. Which I believe, is something that many in our urban centres, like Vancouver and Victoria, are quickly adopting anyway. If that is the case, there will be no looking back on fossil fuels again and with his anger towards us, he will have just harmed the very industry he says he wants to help. See, no good comes from being angry….not to ourselves, and not to our neighbours.
Tomorrow is Good Friday. While I no longer walk a “religious path,” as I’ve been disillusioned by so called Christians, who do not hold love for all in their hearts which I believe is the base for having a God centered life, I still feel extremely spiritual. The teachings from my childhood, Sunday school class float up and ground me, guiding me through my imperfect life. One lesson comes to the fore front as we approach Easter and that is; to love our neighbour.
Whether it’s the chickens in my back forty, or our Canadian neighbours, in the Province east of us, I know love is perfect and is something I’m always moving towards. ….I’m in the process, in the process, in the process….!
And since this is a blog about being sustainable, living a carbon based life may not be sustainable any longer, but always, ALWAYS, being loving is.
Before I wave goodbye, I wanted to leave you with a video from Marvin Gaye’s singing, “Crazy, Crazy, Me. ” April 22nd is Earth Day and we are working hard to eliminate our garbage. It’s a daily challenge! But like shifting anger, we, as a family, are moving towards shifting away from thinking what we put in our garbage can, disappears once the garbage company picks it up. So stay tuned as I hope to share our process with you soon.
Welcome back to my blog. Spring has arrived at long last and with it, came focaccia bread and inspiring sparks of joy. A few weeks ago, our children were off school for their two week, “spring break.” Boy, did we need a time out from our usual routine. During those two weeks, we accomplished a tremendous amount, but when I look back, the highlight was when our sixteen year old daughter, Grace, made focaccia bread. “Focaccia,” comes from the Latin word, focus meaning “hearth, or place for baking. Those two weeks ended up being a time of focus, when we grounded ourselves around the hearth and created an atmosphere where sparks of joy flew.
We started the holiday by resting first, which like bread dough, after an intense kneading session, was something we needed in order to rise to become our best selves.
Don’t you find rest can do wonders for a body? I feel as if rest is viewed negatively in our society. We seem to need to fill each and every moment and day. Even our holidays are jam packed with activities. In the week before the break, I had many people ask if we were going anywhere or doing anything over spring break. I would respond by saying, “we don’t have any great plans,” and then I would ask what they were doing, only to hear that Hawaii or Mexico were on the agenda. For our family, I knew what we needed most was to rest and gain strength. I knew we needed that in order to clear our house, clear our minds, so we could focus on what we really wanted in our lives.
In the weeks leading up to spring break, I had been watching Marie Kondo’s latest Netflix series on tidying up and decluttering. Have you seen it yet? If not, click on the link above and get a glimpse of her program. She has developed an interesting method of gathering all like objects together and then letting the things that spark joy be your guide in deciding what remains in our homes. While I thought I was rather a master at decluttering, using “this” concept, allowed me to tune in more accurately towards inner feelings of elation.
To hone this approach to a greater degree, I also read her latest book, “Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up (The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up).” After that, I was hooked on getting down and dirty, touching everything I owned and asking myself one question, as I held the item close to my chest, “does it spark joy?”
At first this wasn’t easy for me. I would hold the item close to my chest and often feel something, but it had more to do with, “but I may need it in the future,” rather than a zing of joy. I believe this is the residual effects of being raised by a mother who was a child during the depression and then a young woman during the World War II years. If you come from a history of lack, then the tendency is to hold on to things, just in case. As I touched each item, sometimes I would hear a tiny voice saying, “you may need that one day.” But then there was another inner dialogue occurring debating whether it was worth holding onto, maintaining and having to house the item and worst of all, using my energy again next spring picking up the same item! Disregarding both voices, I would simply ask, “does it spark joy?” If not, I thanked the item and put it in the donation box.
I know this may sound weird but this was the part that gave me the greatest joy. I absolutely loved thanking the item and then letting it go. It created this marvellous space in my life and everything around me seemed to sparkle and was suddenly very special. While I decluttered, I also took time to clean or organize what I was choosing to keep which made me feel immensely grateful for everything in our house.
One of several trips I took to donate items that no longer spark joy.I had kept these skates for ages, thinking I would sell them on kijiji, after all each one was worth at least $60.00 dollars new, but then I decided to take them in to our school after spring break and the school was so thankful to have them for their future skating field trips. That sparked joy when I knew they would go to good use.
Can you tell what sparks joy for me most in our home from the pictures below?
Did you guess, “books?” Well you were right. I love them….they spark joy and I love surrounding myself with them and I think our children do as well. I have let go of many, and I’m not one to hoard them, but having books around me makes me happy. What makes you happiest in your home?
In the second week of spring break, my family and I started the meditation challenge together that I wrote about a few posts back. The topic was on Manifesting Grace through Gratitude. Have you been meditating with us? Today is day 21 and the title is, “Seeing with the Eyes of the Soul.” Now I won’t say everyone was enthusiastic over sitting together in a guided meditation, ahem, but I have to give our daughter Grace my thanks, for she hung in there with us throughout the week. I knew the experience was powerful for our younger children, as our daughter Victoria drew a picture during that week, of us sitting in a circle around a candle and she wrote, “I feel way better after doing medating, it also helps me to keep cam and follow my brething.”
Victoria’s picture and story
Then when the break was over, on our drive to school when everyone was feeling anxious about getting back to the routine and seeing classmates, Will remembered one of the mantras, “Namaste,” he said to me as he kissed me goodbye.
When we weren’t omming together, and while I was tidying and decluttering, David, my husband was painting the interior walls of our house a “graceful grey.” After ten years living in a home with varying shades of beige, it was time for a change. Last year, when we were on Vancouver Island, I picked up my future decorator’s palette, while walking on the beach; a piece of creamy driftwood, a grey rock, a dark blue one, a black one and a white one. Those were the colours that spoke to my heart and I knew that even though we may not be able to live at the coast right now, we could recreate those nature colours around us.
Behr’s Graceful Grey throughout the house…we plan to replace our front door but after this picture was taken, David painted the interior of the door…grey. It all looks so fresh and reminds me of the oceanAnd a Galatic Tint, (blue/grey) over the horsehair brown in our master bedroom…reminds me of the lake below our houseThis picture was snapped at the beginning of March….so much can change in a few weeks
Also, with us living on the hillside above the glacial formed, “Kalamalka Lake,” that has earned a moniker of, ” the lake of many colours,” due to all the minerals in the water, I felt that the grey’s and blue’s on our walls would echo what is often outside our windows. I want our house to feel like it’s part of the landscape. Our home and garden, are all works in progress and keep me grounded to this earth. Often as a society, we turn to what is trendy and wonder why we aren’t happy in our homes. If we started to look inside and ask ourselves what makes us happy; what do WE love, then and only then, will we discover authentic joy. What colours make you happy, make you feel good? Are you surrounding yourself with those?
As David and I were busy inside our home, our three youngest enjoyed the warm spring weather. They rode their bikes, jumped on the trampoline, ran in the yard, played board games, read books, played music, and helped me find what sparked joy for them.
And yes they did MATH too…here Will is solving math word problems
In the case of their clothes that was fairly easy. It it fit, it stayed and if it didn’t it went into the donation box after a blessing of appreciation. After learning, from raising our older children that kids grow fast, we try not to over buy clothes for them, making decluttering each season fairly easy. But with regards to stuffed toys, well, as I discovered, that was a totally different animal.
Hard to see but we are using Marie Kondo’s method of folding…absolutely revolutionary in our drawers!!!
One afternoon, I had our twin girls bring all their stuffed animals and pile them on the floor of my bedroom. I had them hold each animal close to their chest and had them ask themselves if it sparked joy. In most cases, they only had to pick it up and you could tell from the light on their faces that it wildly sparked joy. As we moved through the pile, to my dismay, almost every single stuffed animal sparked joy. There was little culling going to occur. Is that the right word for stuffed animals; culling?
Whatever is the right word, letting go was not something they were prepared to do. It’s funny, but they did let go easily of their “FurReal,” stuffed animals. These were the ones that actually barked or meowed, or moved in some mechanical way. Interestingly enough, these were also the ones that were the most expensive toys. I choked thinking of the money we had spent, as they hugged these stuffies one last time, thanking it before dropping it into the donation box. I had to accept that this was a part of the process and lessons for all of us. The animals that sparked the most joy were the ones that were in the worst shape. They looked well loved!
I’d like to think at the end of my days, this is how I will look.
Oh, and you may be wondering how our older daughter Grace spent her spring break? She went to the gym a lot, she worked on her piano pieces as she is hoping to complete her Royal Conservatory grade 10 next year and she spent a bit of time also tidying and decluttering her room, as she has caught the bug and understands the concept of surrounding herself with only things she loves.
She also spent a bit of time helping us cook in the kitchen, making Focaccia bread with a lovely pasta dinner one night, bagels another day and she and her siblings treated us to a pizza dinner one night, a group effort I was proud of. It was so lovely after a day of painting and intense tidying and decluttering, to light a candle, and sit down as a family, enjoying dinner together.
Grace’s Focaccia Bread Recipe (to pronounce, the first C is hard and the second make a cha sound)
Ingredients
2- 3/4 cups of flour
1 tbsp active dry yeast
1 tsp white sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
4 tbsp virgin olive oil (3 tbsp for the recipe and 1 tbsp to brush on top before baking)
2 garlic cloves…but I like more and would use 4!
1 tsp of rosemary/ 1 tsp of thyme/ 1 tsp dried oregano/ 1 tsp basil
Opt: 1 tbsp Parmesan cheese and 1/2 cup Mozzarella cheese
Directions
In a large bowl, stir together flour, salt, sugar, yeast, thyme, oregano, and basil. Mix well and slowly add the warm water and 3 tbsp’s olive oil.
Mix well and when dough has formed a ball, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface ad knead it until it’s smooth and has an elastic feel. Lightly oil a large bowl, placing the dough inside, turning it over to coat it. Cover it with a damp, cotton cloth and place it in a warm place for 20 minutes.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Punch the down down and place it onto a greased baking sheet. Grace used a round cake pan. Pat down the dough to 1/2 inch high and brush with 1 tbsp olive oil and sprinkle it rosemary and optional cheese.
Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve warm with a pasta dinner…or as a appetizer with a dipping sauce of
When spring break finally came to an end, our house was almost fully painted, almost every category had been thoroughly vetted. Only a few boxes of sentimental items and years of pictures are still on the to do list. We were all feeling healthy and strong, ready to focus on what is truly important to us as we head back out into the world. It’s amazing what a rest, some meditation, some tidying, some updating, and some hanging out by the hearth, eating healthy meals with your family can do for a person. I highly recommend it! So on your next break, I hope you take some time to make some homemade focaccia bread, dip it in olive oil and rosemary, and look around your house elated at things that spark joy.
I think Grace’s Focaccia bread recipe will become a family favourite, like our son Mitchell’s crazy bread recipe that he brought home from his Foods course years ago. Before I close though, I have one other thing I want to leave with you. Over spring break I watched a heart warming Hallmark movie. It reminded me yet again, that we don’t have to go far, we don’t have to travel the world, we don’t have to visit expensive restaurants, or spend our time being consumers at the mall. To find real joy, is to be present in the moment.
It’s when we are present, grateful, surrounded by people and things we love, that real sparks of joy occur At least for me. I like to talk about ways where we can live sustainably on this blog and to be moving in that direction, where we are living a lifestyle reducing our carbon footprint, and our need on Earth’s resources, well, it all comes down to living more simply. Resting our bodies, meditating, being grateful for everything in our lives, cooking and baking from scratch and spending time with our families; eating, talking, laughing.
When I watched the following Hallmark movie on You tube, called, “The Magic of Ordinary Days,” I was reminded of another time in history, just before our society took a big jump towards “modern living.” I think something was lost along the way and like an archaeologist, excavating artifacts from past societies, I think we can learn something about living more sustainably and joy filled from past generations. Just like Marie Kondo’s greatest wish, to help the whole world tidy their space and find sparks of joy, my fervent wish is for the world to find the magic in ordinary days. One evening, make a big bowl of popcorn and sit down to watch this movie ,……I will be right there with you, sparking joy!
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
“Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.”
―Maya Angelou
I took the picture of the bridge above, which is located in the Cathedral Grove park, near Parksville, B.C., many years ago. Cathedral Grove, is home to some of Western Canada’s tallest and oldest trees. I was awestruck, traveling through this gathering of wisdom and history. Walking this bridge, reminded me of my life’s journey. At the time, we had four children. Little did I know that we would expand our family to include four more and they would be my greatest teachers.
As the above link proclaims, “Cathedral Grove is a rare and endangered remnant of an ancient Douglas fir ecosystem on Vancouver Island in British Columbia (BC), Canada. The biggest trees in the Grove are about 800 years old and measure 75 m (250 ft) in height and 9 m (29 ft) in circumference.
Although spiritual in meaning, “Cathedral Grove” is a name embedded in a romantic and Eurocentric attitude toward BC nature that does not adequately acknowledge the stewardship of the indigenous peoples, First Nations, who cared for this biological treasure over 1000s of years and preserved it as a big tree heritage for all human beings.”
As I walked through the park for the first time, almost twenty years ago, I can only described the experience as a sacred journey. There was deep peace thrumming in the silence. The oxygen, rich air, filled my lungs and the mossy, green giants, whose roots went deep into the earth whispered, “we are all connected.”
Mitchell and Grace between two giants at Cathedral GroveGrace examines the rocks next to the creek moving through Cathedral Grove
We may not have been able to take our children on grand adventures to see the ancient cathedrals, scattered throughout Europe, but I’d like to think that by taking them to Cathedral Grove Park, and to Long Beach, on the West side of Vancouver Island, where the waves pound, like earth’s own heart beat, that we instilled in our children the love for adventure.
From l to r..Harrison, Michell, Clark, Grace, David/Dad and Alyssa on the ferry ride to Vancouver IslandMitchell during one of our Vancouver Island holidays
And I’d also like to believe that having adventures out in nature, taught our children that we are all connected.
Grace and Harrison, exploring behind our cabin at Parksville.
Two days ago, I tightly hugged my son, Mitchell, and said farewell. He left on his latest adventure. Since finishing University last Spring, he has been working extremely hard to save money to travel. We felt so blessed to have him visit us for a brief period in February.
After a long day of driving to the Okanagan, I had dinner and a belated birthday cake for him. That cakes was amazing with Irish Cream, Chocolate icing…I will make it again and share the recipe. Happy 23rd Birthday Mitchell!
While home, he was able to connect with his younger siblings. He and I had long talks, he with his coffee and me with my tea, about his childhood, mine, and the future. He and his Dad, even had a one on one ski session up at Silver Star.
David and Mitchell off to ski at Silver Star
He was also able to take a week long trip, down to Seattle and Portland, finishing off the trip in Victoria, where he said a final goodbye to his long time friend, A.
Mitchell on his trip to Portland…he’s wanted to experience this placeMitchell with B, on their trip to Portland and Seattle
I haven’t been feeling well since Mitchell left. Our four younger kids were all sick last week, with coughs, fever, sore throats, etc, and this week I’m sick. I’ve been really bummed about it, as I had planned to resume my decluttering, that I put on hold while Mitchell was home.
After the kid’s orchestra group practice last night, I basically came home and collapsed into bed. David warmed up the dinner I had made earlier in the day and tucked the kids in for the night. When I woke up a few hours later, I just laid in bed. The house was quiet. I started thinking about how I felt about Mitchell’s adventure. I started thinking about my own life.
Throughout the night, I turned and turned in my sleep. Even our cat, Ryuuki, gave up sleeping next to me. I laid awake for a long time wondering why I was so restless. Of course, being sick doesn’t help, but there was more. Way more going on.
I had to admit, that for all my talk of letting go and trusting, I was holding onto him. Even a dream I had had a few nights before he had left, hadn’t given me true peace.
In the dream, I was in bed one minute and then I was flying up into the atmosphere. I was flying across the world, across the blue, blue ocean. Then I stopped, and like the camera on a Google map satellite, I zoomed down, and down. My vision becoming clearer, until I saw my son. Mitchell was sitting in a city, near water and he had the most contented look on his face. Then I noticed something red on his travel pack and like a camera lens, I drew the image closer and clearer.
A red lady bug was resting on the top of his back pack. Ever since my mom passed away, seven years ago, the lady bug has been my sign for my mom. Of course, mom was going to be right with him. I could relax. I told Mitchell about that dream the next morning and we both laughed about how my dream was obviously showing me what I had been focused on.
Saying goodbye.
Seven years ago, we had a family gathering in our living room. It was just a few days after mom had passed away on Feb 28th, 2012. We were going around the room, sharing stories of mom and my older sister B, spied the lady bug in an unlikely spot. Did I mention that in my part of the world, you don’t see lady bugs in early March. Ever since, seeing a lady bug is a sign for me from my mom.
This morning, not feeling much better but doing what all moms do; care for their kids, I got up and helped the kids get ready for school. After dropping them off, I reached into my car’s storage drawer, where I keep my Burt’s Bee’s lip balm, and that is when I saw it. A single card from my healing deck, created by Caroline Myss and Peter Occhiograsso.
Just a single card. How did it get there and why was I only finding it now?
The card has a picture of a woman, who is walking on a path of music and the map of Canada is below her. Her arms are wide open and above her are the colours of the chakra.
The text reads, “To be sure of the road, close your eyes and walk in the dark.”
That simple message, put all of my feelings into context. As I drove home, I contemplated the words.
Once again, my children have been the best teachers in this life for me. If my son Mitchell can go across the world, not knowing a soul, just because, “it would be cool to see Australia, maybe New Zealand,”, then I can stay exactly where I am, and have my own adventure right here. After all, do I know what tomorrow holds for me?
For no matter where we go on this earth, life is an adventure and there is nothing to fear.
Exhale! Inhale…exhale.
When I got home from driving the kids to school, I turned over the back of the card and these words were written, “Spiritually closing your eyes permits Heaven to enact the most wonderful guidance in your life. Say the prayer, “Open a new road to me today,” and expect the unexpected. When it appears, accept the gift.”
I’ve said this many times before, but it never fails to surprise me, when I’m given exactly what I need in the moment. This healing card was what I needed to let go, for me and Mitchell. He will be taken care of on his journey, as will I.
One of the many paths through Cathedral Grove
And here I am, hours later now, the kids are noisily home from school, and I’ve spent most of the day, drinking tea and writing this post. And you know what? I feel pretty good. I’ve had beans cooking in the oven all day and the house smells of cumin and garlic. I know as we eat dinner tonight, Mitchell will be right with me. (he really seemed to like my baked beans, rice and veggie dinners)
I also know that wherever Mitchell is, I’m with him too.
March 3, 2019…Mitchell off to the airportTalk about traveling light…the Ospey pack holds all he will needAlthough Mitchell really wanted to get going as it was going to be a long drive to Vancouver to catch his 6 pm flight…he posed with his mom and dad Despite the fact that it was freezing out…minus something below 10 for sure…the kids all came out to say good bye. Grace has been in bed all week and finally is up this morningOne final picture on March 3rd so we can remember all the snow…it’s like 27 celsius in Melbourne! Mitchell in front of the Air New Zealand counter at the Vancouver Airport on March 3rd,
And as I often do, I will close with Coldplay’s video, “Adventure of a Lifetime.” Mitchell this is dedicated to you. Thanks for always gently teaching me and reminding me that all we can do in life is our best and then we have to let go.
You are loved!
Life is an adventure. Live it well!
“Adventure Of A Lifetime”
Turn your magic on Umi she’d say Everything you want’s a dream away And we are legends every day That’s what she told me
Turn your magic on To me she’d say Everything you want’s a dream away Under this pressure, under this weight We are diamonds
Now I feel my heart beating I feel my heart underneath my skin And I feel my heart beating Oh, you make me feel Like I’m alive again Alive again Oh, you make me feel Like I’m alive again
Said I can’t go on Not in this way I’m a dream that died by light of day Gonna hold up half the sky and say Only I own me
And I feel my heart beating I feel my heart underneath my skin Oh, I can feel my heart beating ‘Cause you make me feel Like I’m alive again Alive again Oh, you make me feel Like I’m alive again
Turn your magic on Umi she’d say Everything you want’s a dream away Under this pressure under this weight We are diamonds taking shape We are diamonds taking shape
If we’ve only got this life This adventure, oh, then I And if we’ve only got this life You get me through
And if we’ve only got this life In this adventure, oh, then I Want to share it with you With you With you Yeah I do Woohoo Woohoo Woohoo
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
After trying to conceive for several years, and after the sad loss of our soulbaby (a 12 week loss), I turned to meditation and yoga. Slowly, I came out of the fog of depression stemming from that miscarriage. The dark days of winter grew lighter. I started seeing the beauty around me. The early signs of spring appeared; a red breasted Robin chirping happily on our fence, the warmth of the sun on my face, as I went on a restorative walk, and bright, yellow buds forming on our forsythia bush.
Being grateful, started being my way back to the living.
It was in that state, almost seventeen years ago, next month, that I finally conceived. I was shocked and surprised, but oh so grateful. After trying so hard to conceive month after month, it had just happened. Nine months later, I gave birth to our daughter Grace.
Grace is my daily reminder that being grateful is the key to manifesting anything you want. For when we are grateful, joy follows, and when we are in a joy filled contented space, we are capable of creating anything we want.
We are after all limitless in our ability to create.
Our daughter, Grace Elizabeth. my mom and Grace…mom always told me to count my blessings
Next month, Oprah and Deepak are offering another meditation challenge. It’s called, “Manifesting Grace through Gratitude.” I hope you will join me in this challenge and see if it will help you move towards what you desire most in your life.
And to help you get into the Ommming mood, check out the link the this You tube video, (Om chanting @528 Hz). My sister C, sent it to me the other day and I was absolutely thrilled! Years ago, C had given me a CD called, “The Eternal Om, ” and this You tube video has that same resonance. She called it a healing sound, but I know when you allow it to wash over you, it will pull you towards your golden cord. The cord that connects you to your most creative self and to everything in the Universe. When you are in that vibration, you can manifest ANYTHING. Come Om with me. (Thanks C for this vid link and always being my soul sister)
Until we connect again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
The words “be safe, have fun,” keep reverberating through my brain. They were the last things I said to my two kids, who left on adventures this week. My son Mitchell, who will be off on a grand adventure to Australia at the first of March, left on a west coast road trip this past week. Seeing Portland, Oregon has always been on his bucket list and saying goodbye to his best friend in Victoria before he goes to Aussie land, was a must. Then our sixteen year old daughter Grace, joined her school jazz band this morning, as they traveled down to Moscow Idaho’s big jazz fest.
I hope they both enjoy their journeys.
Saying goodbye is never easy for me. If you have read many of my posts, I may have shared a bit of my past and how my Dad was killed in a truck accident when I was young. Who knew, as I sat on his lap, while he drank the last of his morning coffee, that I would never see him again. While that may be morose, the knowledge that we may never see our loved one after they walk out the door, has settled deep in my bones. I have to resist clinging, but with a quick hug and a jaunty wave I say, “be safe, have fun.” Inside, I’m tearfully praying, “Bring them back to me.”
But the truest part of me knows, they are okay. They will always be okay.
So…..
I let go and trust.
What else can a mom do?
Mitchell as he heads off on his Oregon, Vancouver Island/West coast trip
And what do Buddha Bowls have to do with all of this? Well, I was thinking about how Siddhartha Gautama, who was later referred to as, Buddha, the one who is awake, was born into a royal family in a small kingdom on the Indian-Napalese border. He left all his wealth behind to adventure into the world and discover what was the meaning of life. He wandered the country side, like a traditional holy man of the day, seeking the Truth. He became very adept at meditation under various teachers, and then took up ascetic practices. This was based on the belief that one could free the spirit by denying the flesh. He practiced austerities, to such a strict degree that he almost starved to death.
I wondered how his mom felt as he left home?
What words of wisdom did she impart?
Also, while I don’t know this for sure, I wonder if he too, like many holy men of his day, carried an empty bowl, trusting that he would be fed. There are certainly pictures of Buddha carrying a beggar’s bowl.
As my children head out into the world, on their adventures, I visualize light surrounding them and a full bowl in their hands. I’m trusting my gut, knowing that I can’t hold on to them. They are their own people. I must let go, to allow them to find their own truth; their meaning of life. And while they are away, I will prepare my Buddha bowls and smile, knowing that wherever they travel, they will be fed.
If Buddha’s mom knew that her son would become a spiritual teacher and become enlightened, would it have been easier for her to say goodbye I wonder?
And thinking of being filled and enlightened, I hope you will now join me in my kitchen. We can make a cup of green, or ginger tea, and you can help chop the vegetables so we can make a bowl brimming with goodness; a blissful thing to behold and eat. We need nothing more in our day. Oh and we can chat about what we really, REALLY need in life?
And as we chat I will tell you what I have learned about the Buddha bowl.
Apparently, I’m coming to the party late, or rather, for years now, I was throwing a party for my family and didn’t realize a Buddha themed party was going on around us. Years ago, I took a course called, “The Pursuit of Excellence,” which was a three part, intensive course, put on by the Concept Training Corp. The second part of the course was called, “The Wall,” which took place on Orcas Island, off the coast from Seattle. It was there, that I discovered, Tai Chi, Buddha bowls, and the power of vision boards. That was thirty years ago, long before the trend of Buddha bowls became popular. Then Seventeen years ago, I was invited to visit the Birken Monastery, outside of Kamloops, B.C. for a weekend with my sister C, and her whole yoga class. It was there that I discovered Buddha bowls again.
An image from the Birken Monastery near Kamloops, B.C.
Since then, I’ve been making Buddha breakfast bowls, and lunch and dinner ones; in the morning having oatmeal, fruit and nuts and seeds, and mid day and for dinner, mixing brown rice, or noodles, a bit of stir fry or fresh, raw veggies, pieces of avocado, or a few slices of orange, a sprinkling of nuts and seeds and calling it my “Wall,” dinner or my “Bliss” bowl.
Anyway, a Buddha bowl is comprised of ; something made of grains or starch, such as rice, quinoa, noodles, or sweet potatoes. Then a smattering of protein, such as beans, chick peas, tofu, or meat. (and no, as I will explain later, a Buddha bowl does not have to be strictly a vegan one, although that would be most Buddha- like) And then you add colourful vegetables, raw or lightly steamed, your choice. Finally, you top the whole works with seeds, nuts, avocado for some healthy fat, and some sort of drizzly sauce. Let your bowl be a thing of beauty. Many bloggers have done a piece on Buddha bowls in the last few years. I found one that I really liked called the “Healthy Maven,” and she wrote her Ultimate Buddha Bowl Blog, almost 31/2 years ago. Check out the link to her blog as her Buddha bowl is perfect with lots of greens in it. YUM!
Many people now, who do Instagram like to share what they eat. I know when my son Harrison made a Buddha bowl during the holidays, he was pulling his phone out. Who knew it would be hip to show what you are eating.
Here is a snap of Harrison’s breakfast Buddha bowl
So while making a Buddha bowl is easy, I think the hard part of it, and the thing that sometimes is lost in translation for many, is the idea to eat slowly, mindfully and with a grateful heart. Also, the bowl need not be brimming over. As I watch our little Kathryn eat, I realize that she eats so slowly that by the time the rest of us have finished our meals and are looking for dessert, she is full and has eaten only half of the contents in her bowl. She eats carefully and seems to relish each bite. Oh to watch her eat tomatoes and avocados with such a beautiful smile on her face, inspires me to chew slower.
Savour the flavour.
Kathryn, last summer, looking at a bowl of peach cobbler and ice cream
Certainly when I was on Orcas Island, hitting the proverbial wall, the facilitators from the Concept Training Corp, were ahead of their time, reminding us as we ate in silence, “to contemplate each bite and be grateful for the food.” I think many of the people at this work shop had big issues with the food over that long weekend, as it was sparse. Many pointed out, when we came out of the silence part of the course, that they had paid big bucks for the course, many traveled far, and they didn’t appreciate sleeping in frigid, boy scout cottages, on rough, wooden bunk beds. And the breakfast oatmeal and rice and veggies for dinner were not cutting it for many. Most people hit the wall with regards to their comforts in life. But not me. Nope! I was in my element. The limited food allowed me to think clearer and the silence allowed me to find deep peace. Trusting others however is when I hit my wall on Orcas.
Harrison making another Buddha bowl over ChristmasOn a bed of rice, there was vegetables, chicken, and some avocado slices
Years later, when I traveled with C to the Buddhist Monastery, I found that the two healthy meals a day, inter mixed with meditation and yoga allowed me to focus on my inward journey. And when it was meal time, I was heightened to the food’s texture, flavour and colour. I was also intrigued later to learned that the monks, while they preferred to eat a vegan or vegetarian diet, were thankful for any contribution that people offered them. If meat was given, it would be cooked lovingly and eaten with the same reverence and gratitude they held for their vegan or vegetarian fare. They blessed all food that was given to them and they were thankful for each mouthful.
Ever since the Wall, I ve enjoyed a bowl of oatmeal each morning with some apples and cinnamon…..being ever grateful for each bite
While our older children may scoff inward at our habit of saying thanks before our meals, as they search for their own ideas of spirit and God, I know that being grateful for the food we are about to eat, is an important aspect of allowing it to be used well by our bodies; to nourish and to bless.
My sister’s birthday party reminded me that less is more…beans, rice and veggies is all we need
Last November we went to my sister C’s house to celebrate her birthday. Her husband D put on a wonderful spread, even though we said we were just coming for afternoon tea. D had been simmering beans all morning and had a big pot of rice, colourful tortilla chips, and a vegetable platter all laid out beautifully in their kitchen. The meal was served in simple white bowls.
My sister J, and in the background is my husband David enjoying his Buddha Bowl of beans and rice…veggiesMy brother in law B, who just celebrated his birthday a few days ago my sister C’s family dog, Coco…I think they call her Coco bean….she was sleeping when I took this picture and she just looked up…isn’t she a sweetie…my daughter Victoria would say, “all you need in life is a dog!”We made these crazy little instruments made out of wood and elastics and C is trying to blow the tune to Happy Birthday on her’s….happy Birthday C!What a wonderful Buddha Bowl birthday meal we had at C’s party last while this isn’t the greatest picture…if you look above C’s head, hanging above their fireplace is the windchime I made for C’s birthday…J and I were finishing it off on the car ride to their place…good memories!!!…the round bits are bracelets that C gave to me…and the header is from our birch tree.
Anyway, THAT meal, inspired me to pull out my mother in law’s old, brown, bean pot. Under my brother in law D’s suggestions, I now soak our beans, (usually pinto and black beans, but navy beans are great too) the night before. In the morning, I rinse and drain the beans and pour them into the bean pot. Then I saute onions, garlic, green peppers, and add a bag of frozen tomatoes, from our last summer’s harvest. Add a few cups of water, and some cumin, a few pieces of dried chili pepper, some barbecue sauce, a bit of apple cider vinegar and some brown sugar. I add that all to the bean pot and cook it all morning at 300 degrees in the oven. I check it every hour and stir often. As it thickens, I add more water until the beans are nice and soft. Later, I make a pot of brown rice, a big green salad, pull out a bag of tortilla chips and I have dinner and a lunch for the kid’s thermos the next day. Another Buddha bowl type dinner!
It’s all we really need in a day.
And although Victoria put her dinner on a plate, it looks great in a bowl!
So whatever you fill your bowl with each day, I hope your heart is filled with loving kindness and compassion. For without those, in my opinion we are truly empty. And the next time you see someone on the street, think of Buddha’s empty bowl and give something to that stranger, it doesn’t have to be much, even a smile, for that stranger is is my son, or my daughter.
And before I close, as I often do, I wanted to share a video of George Harrison singing, “Give me Love~give me peace” For some reason when I think of Buddha, George’s music comes to mind. I hope you like it as much as I do.
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.”~ T.S. Eliot~
I started this post at the beginning of January but, alas, did not get around to finishing or posting it. Before I knew it. Chinese New Year had arrived, and once again, I lingered over the keys, trying to get this first post off the ground. Again, life swept me up and away. It’s not like I had nothing to say. I have been bursting with things to share, but until today, it felt like every moment was spoken for.
Finally, today, as fluffy, white flakes, fall gently on our still wintry landscape, the day feels peaceful. It feels empty. The perfect environment to write a blog post. As I type, I can hear the kid’s muffled laughter. After lunch they asked, “can we shovel the drive way?” I can just imagine what it looks like now; here and there cleared areas and crunched footprints of snow everywhere. My husband, David will smile when he arrives home.
I love Pro D days, when the teachers are in class, and I’m home with our children. I daydream about what it would be like to keep them home full time. We spent the morning doing more math, writing, reading and music, than they do at school in a whole week. Yet I know, for our children, school is an important part of their learning. Did you know that I started working as a lunch time, school supervisor last fall? Yep, that’s my new gig. It’s also one of the reason I haven’t had time to write. I’m needed, smack in the middle of my day. It cuts any hope of my creativity in half. But it’s been good.
I watch children during lunch hour and realize school is far more than teaching academics. I observe children making and keeping friends, thinking up games and negotiating rules, treading sometimes roughly on other’s feelings, and I help them consider their words and guide them towards saying a humble, “I’m sorry.” I’m there to advocate for those who need help speaking up and watch as they smile, with an obvious sense of accomplishment, when they have been heard. Who knew one hour a day would allow me to see our future, or what it could look like.
Kids are good!
And while I often have wondered if we should be homeschooling our children, (everyone has to find what is right for their children) I see that our children learn far more being out in the world, than I could teach them at home. But that is a blog post for another time. For now, this precious day allows me to have time to be creative, and for our children, to have time to delight in an endless, wintry day.
Bonus: our drive way is partly shoveled.
No, today isn’t on writing about the merits of school, teaching social skills, but about the New Year.
Happy New Year!
Is it still a New Year? Maybe not according to Western dates but based on the Chinese New Year date, it’s still relatively a new year. And According to the Chinese,
THIS IS MY YEAR!
It’s the year of the PIG!
Yep, that’s me! I was born in the year of the pig and I’m proud of it. Many of the traits a pig supposedly holds, resembles me.
” People with Chinese zodiac Pig sign are considerate, responsible, independent and optimistic. They always show generousness and mercy to endure other people’s mistakes, which help them gain harmonious interpersonal relationships. However, sometimes they will behave lazy and lack actions. In addition, pure hearts would let them be cheated easily in daily life.”
Okay, I added that last one, but I would say that describes me almost to a tee, especially the sluggish part, which sadly, describes my writing of late.
OINK!
Also, one of the pig’s lucky numbers is “8.” Since we have eight children, I’d say that is a very lucky number indeed. At least for me. Many would say two is good. And many these days would say zero is their number!
Whatever your number is, rejoice!
Eight is my number and without it, I wouldn’t have as much to blog about. So here I am, back to my blog, even though the New Year is well tarnished and my New Year’s resolution, “to write more,” is rather rusty. It is, however, still relatively early in 2019 and there is much to accomplish and experience this year. And so today is the beginning of a new year, and a new day.
And that is how I am going to navigate my days….all 312 Days — or — 44 Weeks and 4 Days until the end of this year.
Who’s counting?
Each one is a hope, filled, gift.
Speaking of gifts, before I plow any further into this year, I want to glance back to the last time I wrote, which was the end of 2018. I wanted to share a peek into our holidays, and also share with you the highlighted recipe of our Christmas season. Cinnamon Buns!
The first batch of the season!
Ever since our oldest daughter Alyssa was a baby, making Cinnamon buns has been a holiday tradition. I’ll never forget that first Christmas, when I plunked her into one of our double sinks, layered with a thick warm towel and gave her some sweet dough to play with. As I stood beside her, kneading the dough, Christmas music wafting from the stereo and the warmth of the kitchen surrounding us, little did I know as a young mom, I was creating a tradition that would continue for many years. It seems appropriate to share that tradition now and also the recipe for future generations to enjoy.
I felt really blessed this past Christmas, to have seven of our eight children at home for the holidays. So much so, that I made not one, but two batches of “sticky buns,” as my mom used to call them. Now I know these aren’t the healthiest thing in the world to eat, but another thing that I’m conscious of as I grow older, and that is, I’m not going to live forever and there are some things in life that are worth making and eating. Cinnamon buns are that for me. Besides, I’m going to be writing about making Buddha bowls next, and if you eat 90% healthy, and drink lots of water, then I figure some cinnamon buns are more than okay.
Here are a few snap memories of our holidays and my cinnamon bun recipe. I have to thank my mother in law, Doreen, whose been gone for over a decade now, for she gave my husband this cook book when he left home. This book, “Five Roses Guide to Good Cooking,” is well loved and ratty and has been a staple in my cook book collection for years now.
This book has been in my recipe drawer for years now and is always my go to book for those old classic home cooked meals…thanks Grandma DoreenMerry and Bright was the theme for our holidays
Our Siamese cat Ryuuki waits and waits for his people to arrive
Thankfully the weather stays nice until everyone is safely home
The little girls read to pass the time until the big brothers and sister arrive homeCards arrive and I start to decorateAnd I decorate….our skimpy trees that we got from the mountains are BEAUTIFUL!
The angels bring everyone home safely…thank you Tamara for my newest Angel holding the Christmas wreath…she is called, “Magnolia,” and she brings a “gathering of blessings.” Thank you Tamara, for you are one of those blessings.
And then they start coming home….
Clark arrives home on his birthday, Dec 20th, in time to blow out the candles on his cake (2+6)= 2 decades and six years… and then we are off to attend little girl’s String Christmas concert…Clark even plays when the whole group gathers to play the classic Christmas songs. And we get the attic ready for the next kids to arrive
Then more of our children return home; Alyssa from Victoria where she has been teaching and writing
And with Alyssa, Harrison arrives home. A belated birthday celebration kicks off the holidays. Harry turned 20 on the 19th of Dec. We are so happy to have you home Harrison!
The garage, aka, “Santa’s workshop” was non admissible ….but Finally it was Christmas Eve and time to pull out the ancient book that I’ve had since my childhood….yes now an antique! ha…and time for the tradition of opening up jammies on Christmas eve and reading, “The Night Before Christmas.” Take it away David! And always, my parents are with me I’d like to say the stockings were hung, but in our case they have to lie down as there are so many of us! Yes, I’m a minimalist…but in the stockings are underwear, new socks, tea, coffee, and a few toys for the little ones…oh and chocolate…can’t forget the sweets And the little girls find what Santa was working on in his workshop. Santa made a fireplace too, and a kitchen island, and beds. Mrs. Claus made stockings for the fireplace and bedding for all the beds. There are hearts on the stockings and on the bedding. Two new little Chelsie dolls are wrapped under the tree, ready to be placed in the doll house.Two Chelsie dolls, one with a puppy and one with a kitten, were wrapped for the girls under the Christmas tree…perfect for their new house! Another Santa work shop project was.a new shelf unit so Alyssa can keep her writing organized….Alyssa, now you can put something you aren’t using out on the curb!And we eat….thank you Mr. Turkey!
And the kids put on a Christmas concertAnd we eat…..And we play games…Harrison liked our new Monopoly Ultimate banking game…right down his alley as he’s studying businessAnd Eat!!!
The girls played and played with their new dollhouse And played more Ultimate banking~~~And we have friends over..Clark with his school friends, J and D…maybe someday they will have a law practice together? And finally the snow arrived…and we were enveloped in peaceful whiteAlyssa, always a resourceful photographer, pulled out the ladder and started our 2018 holiday shoot….of course outside, brrrrr! but it was fun!Victoria Hope, is our youngest, but she would tell you only by 5 minutes but her twin Kathryn, would remind her that they were 5 LONG MINUTES!
Kathryn Mira was asking for her two front teeth for Christmas If there was another name for Joy, it wold be William…our Will lights up the world with his smile and hugsA few days before Christmas our just turned 16 year old, Grace Elizabeth said, “cut off my hair mom”…and that’s what I did. As sad as I was to see her long chestnut locks drop to the kitchen floor, I have to say, “Grace you are growing up more beautiful every day…inside and out!”Harrison,”we miss you, we miss you, we miss you”….but we know you are loving being away from home and rocking it at UniversityClark, what I just wrote above under Harry’s pic, ditto for you. We miss you! We are so proud of all you are accomplishing at U of A. Alyssa is our oldest and ultimate creator in so many ways. Check out her latest blogs and videos on her own site. ARReynolds~writer~photographer~artistNote: all the pictures here were from my camera, but I must ask Alyssa for her copies as she is a true photographer. Here she is working her magic.There we are…the Reynolds gang. Although our son Mitchell is missing…..he is however next to my heart. For the holidays he remained in Victoria, where he was working and saving money for his upcoming trip to Australia. Merry Christmas Everyone!Bringing up the rear in this photo shoot and protesting, “you don’t want to see my face!”, is my husband David…you are, the ultimate Santa! And then there is me Hope/aka Lee…..I’m all about plaid this year and I dragged out this old scarf from the days we lived in “Hope,”…did it belong to one of my older sisters? If any of you are watching or reading the “Outlander series, you know why I’m mad for plaid. Sisters… how much Scottish do we have in our ancestors?
And that, in a nutshell of picture memories, was a bit of our Christmas 2018. When I think about it now, I feel warm. The love in our home, the memory of the laughter, the joy on the faces of our little girls, seeing their dollhouse for the first time, the smell of cinnamon drifting from the kitchen, the magic felt when cello and violins come together to play endearing Christmas music, eggnog latte’s….I want to thank my family for the best gift of all….staying connected!
And now without further ado, the recipe that I want to share to all who read my blog. My recipe for:
Doesn’t this one look heart shaped!
Cinnamon Buns
Ingredients for the sweet dough
2 packages of active dry yeast (each pkg is a little less than 1 tbsp….so if you use bulk yeast like I do…just under 2 tbsps)
1 cup of lukewarm water
2 tsp sugar
1 cup of milk
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
6 cups of Five roses All purpose flour (or whatever you use)
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp grated lemon rind
Opt: 1 cup of raisins or currants…we opt out as some of the kids don’t like them
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Instruction
Sprinkle yeast into lukewarm water, add 2 tsp sugar; let stand for 10 minutes, then stir.
Scald milk; add butter, sugar and salt. Cool to lukewarm and add softened yeast; mix together.
Add half the flour, 3 cups, to make a thick batter, add the 2 tsp of cinnamon and if you are using the raisins, you add 1 cup at this time. Add eggs and lemon rind and beat well.
Stir the remaining flour, using only enough to make a soft dough that does not stick to hands or bowl. Turn out on a lightly floured board and knead until smooth and satiny~about 10 minutes.
Me kneading for 10 minutes…really hard on the handsBut well after Christmas the kids still wanted to have their sticky buns with some hot cocoa when friends came for a play date
Place the ball into a greased bowl; turning it over to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until it doubles in size. About 11/2 hours.
Thank you to my niece T and my older sister B for the tea towel you brought me last summer….”we must all RISE to the Occasion”
Punch down and knead lightly. Shape with a rolling pin into long rectangular pieces. (I find I can get two long rectangles with this recipe) Brush tops with the melted butter and sprinkle with the brown sugar and cinnamon.
The little girls like doing the sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon…next year I’m getting them to knead!
Starting at the long side, tightly roll up, pinching the seam to seal. Then with a serrated knife, cut 11/2 inch pieces and lay them on a prepared pan. (I lightly spray with cooking oil) Brush melted butter over the buns and cover and let rise in a warm place for another hour or until they double in size.
The little girls top the buns with butter before they start their second rise
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake for 10 minutes and then lower to 350 degrees, and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes. My oven is hot and I find that I need to watch the buns closely. I bring them out when they are golden brown.
I frost them while they are warm using a cream cheese icing and sprinkle them with chopped pecans, walnuts or as we did at Christmas time, crushed peppermint canes.
And our kids enjoyed them so much at Christmas time, that I’ve been making them every couple of weeks since then…once when they had friends over after school and you would think I was a genius as their friends told them, “your mom is an amazing” I’ll take that!
Nothing says Christmas to me more than Cinnamon Buns…the gooier the better. One final note, years ago, I made these with my hands but now I use my kitchen aid mixer for most of the dough mixing, although the 10 minutes of kneading is all me. The next time I make them, I’m handing that task off to my younger kids and get them into the art of making this sweet dough. It’s a new day after all.
The little girls head off to school after Christmas break with their new scarves I made them for Christmas….they turned out not bad for a rookie knitter….watch out…everyone is getting a scarf!
Well dear ones, that is my long, held post and I can’t tell you how glad I am that it’s now written and ready to publish. So much has been going on at the homestead since the holidays. I started into New Year decluttering big time, inspired by Marie Kondo’s Netflix show on that subject. Then once we started to declutter, I realized our walls were really, REALLY beige.
I think this picture shows the clear definition of beige and graceful grey…I love the new grey…in some lights it looks almost greeny and then in other’s bluey….whatever, it reminds me of the lake colours in the winter.
Alyssa’s been telling me that for years. Funny, I didn’t see it, but suddenly, “Naturally Calm,” was driving me crazy. I asked Santa to take off his red hat and replace it with a painters cap. The next time he visited Home Depot, he brought me Behr’s palette of greys. As I type, Santa, aka, David is in the process of painting our interior. “Graceful Grey,” for the most part…don’t you love the name?
Stay tuned!
Also, I want to tell you about my latest discovery, “Buddha Bowls.” Yes, I know, I know, those of you who are hip and urban say, old news, but hey, we’ve been doing them all along and I want to blog about it. Who knew something we’ve been doing for years now would be so cool! They are the one stop meal for all your daily nutrition and when you are a busy mom, you need one stop and few dishes. I will be blogging about it soon, so I hope you come by for another visit. As your New Year unfolds, one joyous day at a time, may it be full of peace and love.
And to close my post, here is Will.I.Am singing, “It’s a new day.” Even though this video was from 10 years ago and our political environment is much different, I believe with a positive attitude and holding the vision for how we want our world to look, we can change much. It starts with you and me, teaching our children well…all of us together. So come on and start singing with me, “it’s a new year…it’s a new day!”
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
This year end blog post, is basically centered on the theme of Henry David Thoreau’s quote below.
~”Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to mankind”~
It’s timely is it not? After all, the weeks leading up to the holidays are consumer driven, as we purchase the non essentials in life, to bestow on those we love.
While there were many times I started writing on this theme, and I certainly talked to many people about it throughout the year, it took a recent event to help me find clarity on the subject.
Also, it was a tough year for me. In my often, ummm, can I say depressed state, the last thing I wanted to do was write a non inspiring post. After all, this is suppose to be where you can find hope. She was clearly absent.
My best friend T, gave me this ornament years ago…later in this post I will tell you about how T’s visit shifted my perspective at the end of this year
Unwrapping the last days of this year, has allowed me to see the gem of wisdom that 2018 gave me. But first, before I show you how well it glitters, I’d like to travel back over the year, sharing how this unusual year unfolded for me.
Have you ever had one of those years, where almost everything you own, stopped working? Well, if I were to describe 2018, it would be the year of “experiencing possession hell.”
It literally started on New Years Day when David was taking the older kids home after Christmas. While driving over the mountains to the coast, a car flew by our van, and a rock was thrown up, hitting and smashing our sun roof. That was the first incident heralding a difficult year for us. The next item to crash was my computer.
I had really wanted to join my writing group in January, for what was meant to be a “diving deeper session,” but without my main writing tool, it was impossible to write. I have been limping along using the kid’s desk top computer, (which I’m writing on now) but it’s been agonizing to write in our computer niche, which is basically in the hall between all the children’s bedrooms, a thriving thoroughfare. Not in the least, conducive for writing.
Then all sorts of little things throughout the spring stopped working; our lawn mower and trimmer, David’s coffee maker, our toaster, the microwave to name only a few.
Our new lawnmower, after our old one died
In June, we had a terrible wind and rain storm. I awoke in the dead of night, to hear William whisper urgently, “there is water coming into our house.” When I went to investigate, water was flooding down the stairwell. As it turned out, our sky light had blown off our roof and rain was pouring in, which damaged our wood floors, caused water stains on our drywall, and of course, the sky light was badly scratched. Of course, the roofers, who had just replaced our roof the year before, denied being responsible for “NOT” screwing our sky light down when they laid down the new shingles
This was also the month that we were finally having the air conditioner replaced, although we did know the summer before that this would be on our list. Still, it was a biggie and you know, it’s always such a pain getting contractors to quote and then actually do the job. We had started looking for someone to purchase it from in April and it had taken months to actually have it installed!
After what seemed like forever, the new air conditioner was installed
Finally, cool air was blowing in our house in time for our summer guests to arrive but then one morning, I woke up and there was no hot water. Yikes! Yes, our hot water tank needed to be replaced.
At this point, I threw up my hands and wondered what was next. What was next, ended up being new tires for our little car, (the back tire literally shredded to bits while I was driving with the kids to what was suppose to be a frugal camping experience, HA!) When we came back from that trip, our pool pump stopped pumping, and then, gee, while we are at it, we might as well replace the solar cover for the pool too, since it was falling apart.
Here is a snap of our little Fit being loaded onto a tow truck trailer after we blew a tire on the way to our camping trip. It was blistering hot as we waited on the side of the road for David to come and collect us in the van.
Well, this went on and on, with one item after another breaking down. Somewhere along the way, we got our two University bound sons off to their respective schools, the van loaded down with various furniture pieces, their Dad had constructed for them throughout the summer. I thought things would let up, as we headed into fall but nope, and in fact, as I write this blog post, David just got the part for our garage door opener, and thankfully, it was the right one. He was able to take the whole thing apart and put the necessary part in himself. It’s handy, to have a handy-man in the house. What would we have done if he was not so, I don’t know.
What was the worst thing about this whole year you may ask? It was my depression. I was mentally broken. I can’t pin point when it started but with each thing that needed to be replaced or repaired, it took a piece of light out of me. And until recently, I felt disconnected with the world. When I look back at pictures of myself, I seem to be there but trust me, I was living in a fog of sadness.
But as life may have it, something happened to help me see my life in a different light. My dearest friend came for a visit in November. We don’t live close any longer, but thankfully, she still has family in our area and she often takes time to visits me when she does come to our little town. It was so good to see her and we caught up on each other’s lives in a few hours. You know you have a BEST friend when you can pick up exactly where you left off, even though you may not see each other for months.
This is for you T……
When I waved goodbye to her, I realized that she had brought me a huge gift. You see, her mom, and her younger sister, had both been recently diagnosed with cancer within months of each other. Throughout the fall, they had both been dealing with surgery and treatment for their disease. My dear friend was holding everything together for her family. Somehow, she has been caring for her immediate family, (as well as a family friend who was living with them) holding down a job, helping her oldest daughter to plan a wedding, spear heading many of her youngest daughter’s grade 12 grad events/fundraisers, while all the time coming up to the Okanagan to offer support and care for her extended family. When T’s navy blue car was finally out of sight, I walked back into my home, sighing deeply.
Something inside of me shifted.
A little piece of light shone.
When I look at the list of “THINGS,” that had broken in my life, I realized I was dealing with first world problems. Also, nothing can compare to when you have someone sick in your family.
It was all just stuff. Although it had been a really tough year on our pocket book, somehow David had earned the money to cover our expenses. Also, when I looked at my list; “sun roofs, sky lights, air conditioners, pool pumps,” etc, I realized how blessed we are!!! To even have these things in life is incredible. What really hit me was, “the more we have, the less focus we have on what is truly important.” Our family, our friends, our community, our world.
And when I look back on some of the highlights from our year, life was full of goodness, even if I was too blind at the time to recognize it. Here are a few moments from our 2018 year.
Early in the spring, David completed our cool attic space, in time for Harrison to return from University. Although he changed the “Relax,” sign to “Carpe Diem.”
Harrison home from his first year at University
Mitchell came home too for a short visit. The weather was beautiful and it was a nice respite for him after a challenging year of University. Soon he would graduate.
The Second String Trio (Will, Kate and Tori) throw a few late spring concerts
Will got a kayak for his 9th birthday and we are all excited for him….can we try it out?
I planted our garden late in the year, but we had abundance, after abundance, even though our Province was covered in smoky skies from all the forest fires.
We went to the Island to see Mitchell graduate and had a delightful visit in my sister B.’s guest suite at B and J’s strata complex. The kids love, LOVE their dog Dugan
A pod of killer whales were spotted while we were on the ferry..wow!
Then we went to Victoria to attend Mitchell’s graduation from U ViC, proudly holding his new science degree diploma.
Guess what? My oldest had her ten year grad reunion last July. . Here she is visiting with our kitty Ryuuki before she heads off to one of the planned grad reunion events.
And right after Alyssa’s grad reunion, we left on the fateful camping trip, where our car blew a tire. We had to have the car towed to Salmon Arm and then have four new tires installed!
Grace, above in the bright orange shirt, turned 15 last year and this past summer, got a job at the water slides. The kids and I spent several summer days hanging out watching her say, “go…okay, you can go….go, ….no, don’t go…”…you get the idea.
In July, we had a memorable family get together at my sister J’s house…the one that lives in the country with an amazing house/property
The kids jumped and jumped all summer long…on the trampoline, in the pool, off the wharf at the country club.
While the little kids jumped, Harrison and Clark worked hard as landscapers….Clark worked 5 days a week and then on the 6th he worked at the Science Centre….The guys had great tans and amazing muscles by the end of summer…thanks for digging up one of our mugho shrubs boys!
Then before we knew it, Clark was off to U of A, where he had been accepted into their law program. All thumbs up Clark!
And then it was Harrison’s turn…not the best picture but the kids were up super early to say good bye to Harrison. David looks really tired as he just came back from driving to Edmonton, where he dropped Clark off…now he is off to Victoria with Harry….what a crazy summer!
And before we knew it, the kids were back to school and it was clean up time around the yard. Thanks Kate, and thanks chickens. Sadly, we lost one of our chicks this fall…but as I type this, the other three are probably cuddling together under the heat lamp.
Another highlight of our year, was when Harrison came home in November for reading week and brought a special person into our lives. It was lovely getting to know D better. Using a coin expression I’ve picked up from when Alyssa was in London, “Don’t they look brilliant!”
Then it was David’s birthday, my birthday, my sister C’s birthday, then Grace’s 16th birthday and finally, just a few days ago, Clark came home on his birthday and we celebrated his birthday too
Amidst all of those birthdays, it was time to decorate for Christmas….
And finally there were concerts, and concerts and concerts…I’m not kidding! Today, was finally the last one…oh that is until Christmas day when the kids will throw us another concert…it’s their gift to us. It’s my favourite one of the year though, as it’s in the comfort of our home.
As I wrap up 2018, I can look at it kindly and say, thank you. It was a year of immense lessons. When so many people in the world are starving, when many families are struggling to give their children a better life, when families are facing major health issues, or losing loved ones, how can I be depressed over our material wealth?
I gave myself a good kick in the pants, pulled up my socks and threw myself into the act of counting my blessings and giving to others. There is so much goodness in my life and this year, I basically slept through it all in a fog of depression. I vow to do better tomorrow, in the days ahead, and in the upcoming year.
I also want to take more time and reevaluate our material possessions. I read two interesting books this past fall, “Meet the Frugalwoods,” and “You can buy happiness, (and it’s cheap!).” Both books had me really thinking again about material possessions and simplicity. I know for me, when I choose to NOT buy into the consumer driven culture, when I’m creative, when I make things from scratch, etc, I’m more content and happier.
Elizabeth Willard Thames, the Author of Meet the Frugalwoods…a must read if you want simplicity in your life
A good example, is our trip to the mountains once again to cut down our Christmas trees. (BTW, they are under the power lines and would be cut down anyway.) They are beautiful. No, they are not full and huge, like a cultured tree, or a fake one. Instead, they are organic looking, natural and real. Did I mention how delightfully fragrant they are too? Instead of buying a tree stand, David and I put our thinking caps on and filled a large bucket with small round rocks from our yard and filled it with water. Guess what? It works great and didn’t cost a thing.
Along the lines of simple living, I’m knitting our little girl scarves for Christmas and David has been in Santa’s workshop again this year making them a Barbie house. Our oldest daughter is also getting something special from the workshop, but as she often reads my blog, I will refrain from spoiling the surprise.
Despite it being Freezing in the garage, David, aka, Santa, built the little girls a doll house for their barbies….in the picture it’s not painted but it is now and it’s very cottagy…is that a word? We have plans to make some furniture and a fireplace with little pea gravel glued on…the top of the doll house comes off so it can turn into a shelf unit when the little girls outgrow Barbie’s.
The point is though, that for me anyway, making things, if we have to have “things,” is more satisfying than earning the money and buying stuff. More stuff that will just break. And you know what brings me the most joy? Doing little things that help others. Although we didn’t have a lot extra in the budget this year, we were able to buy some baking from our school’s girls group, who were using the proceeds to purchase goats for third world families. We gave some gently used toys to our community’s local toy drive, (and a new one too) and all the kids dropped food into our school’s food bank bins. It’s not much, but it makes me smile and realize, I have so much.
So how was your 2018? What did it teach you about your life and how you are living it? Often, it’s the times in our life when we are down on our knees crying, that we learn the most about life. I don’t think we always need to suffer though to learn. We need to open our hearts, open our eyes and realize how blessed we are.
As the year closes, I hope you know that one of my blessings is you. I’m thankful to have a few people who make a cup of tea and come to read my posts.
Christmas is only a few days away and with it comes the season of light, love and hope. It’s hope that lit my way this year. Now if I can spread a bit of that around, my holiday will really be full of joy. Funny how that works hey?….when you give of yourself, the joy of giving floods back into your life.
What do you want for Christmas?
I hope your holiday is merry and bright and magic fills your heart. I thought I would end this post with one of my fav newer Christmas songs. “When Christmas Comes to Town,” from the Polar Express movie, is played, it WHOOSHES me back to when I was a little girl. A little girl whose father had just died and she was struggling to still believe in the unseen. Was Santa real? Where did her Dad go? I sometimes wonder if this material world is real.
I think it’s just an illusion to get me to look deeper.
Merry Christmas!
and happy New Year! It will undoubtedly be full of new experiences and lessons. (Also, in my case, my daily mantra will be, “All things are working in my life!)
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Blessings from Hope
(This blog post is dedicated to my dear friend T, her mom, and sister. You are not alone. Your struggles touch the world as we are all connected. “Be well.”) Continue reading →
Have you ever noticed when you do one thing, several other things fall into place at the same time? It’s kind of like the above quote, “A Manifesto for a Simple Life;” when we stress less for instance, we laugh more. Recently, it occurred to me that by becoming a more sustainable family; growing our own food, making our own meals from scratch, concocting our own cleaning and household supplies, that we are naturally moving in the direction of becoming a zero waste family too. And going in the direction of zero waste, melds perfectly with a vegetarian lifestyle and minimalism. And all of these things naturally move us in the direction of supporting our earth.
Now I don’t want to give you the wrong impression; we are still far away from where Bea Johnson’s family, is at, check out her book called, “Zero Waste Home,. But we have come a long way from the days of ordering two large pizzas every Saturday night and putting out two cans of garbage each week. (P.S. even though those pizza boxes went into the recycling, you know darn well, that anything with cheese stuck to the lid is going to end up in the landfill.)
If you are reading this blog, you are probably like- minded and jive with what we are doing and like us, have stopped using plastic water bottles long ago, in favour of reusable ones. You probably have invested in a good quality hot beverage cup, and even take it when you visit your favourite coffee shop; ’cause most places give you a discount when you bring your own cup now. You probably bring cloth bags when you shop and have ditched the tetra juice containers for your kids too. They were never the healthiest choice anyway. But I’m wondering if you have taken your zero waste to the next level? (I know some of you have, as I spied my sister C’s bamboo toothbrush on a weekend retreat last fall. She has always flowed in the green stream)
I thought I would share a few things that our family has chosen to do, which are not drastic steps but easy- peasy ones that anyone can incorporate. You may already be doing them. Bravo! They do make a big difference in our garbage output.
Five Easy Things to Help Our Planet Earth
Stop using paper towels. Instead, cut up old bath towels and kitchen clothes and turn them into rags to clean with. I use old socks that have lost their partner, (if you are a large family, you can relate) to dust with and I have some great micro fiber clothes my sister B gave me. You just wet them, wring them out and clean; only elbow grease is required.
My little yellow plastic stacking set up for my cleaning rags. (This stacking bin was my mom’s and is ages old) As my oldest son Clark says, if you have things that are plastic, just use them! Notice the black socks…great for dusting and remind me that I should do it more often~
Get rid of the kleenex boxes. We use homemade handkerchiefs instead. I actually feel so pampered when I have a runny nose and use one of my beloved hankies to blow my nose with; like I’m a princess. It’s such a relief on the pocket book and the recycling bin, not to fill it with empty kleenex boxes. Remember, just because something is recycled, doesn’t mean it’s the greenest way to go.
Beloved hankies make me feel like a princess.
Paper Napkins are a thing of the past. We only use cloth napkins now, or as my eight year old says, “my sleeve works great too!” This was an easy first elimination and several years ago, my sister J, gave me some lovely cloth napkins that we use all the time, but you can easily make some from fabric scraps.
Paper lunch bags and Plastic Sandwich wraps. Again, this was an early change for us. Each family member has a reusable lunch bag, and when I have old sheets, I whip up a new batch of snack/sandwich bags. In the old days, or so I have been told, a hard boiled egg, or baked potato etc, would be wrapped up in a cloth napkin and tied and that would be lunch. When I help out at my children’s school, I’m always so surprised to see so much packaging; granola bars, goldfish crackers in little bags; and don’t even get me started about the packaging involved with the lunchables! We can do better, all it takes is some planning and some reusable containers/bags.
Made out of an old cotton sheet, little bags make great sandwich and snack bags
Like an assembly line, the children all have their own thermos, water bottle and sandwich holders. The cotton bags keep their wraps from getting mushy next to their veggies.
No more plastic garbage bags; You know those white ones that we put in our household garbage cans? I don’t know what your set up is, but we have a black garbage bin attached to the cupboard under our kitchen sink. When I open the door, it swings out and I dropped my garbage inside.
I know too easy and eventually I want it gone/empty, but until then, just getting rid of the plastic white bag is an easy first step in eliminating some plastic. Every day I just dump the contents into our main garbage can in the garage and put the pail back under the sink. Did you hear about the story of the young sperm whale that washed up off the coast of Spain in February? The whale was found to have 64 pounds of garbage in his digestive system; including plastic trash bags. If we all just stopped using plastic bags in the world that would be a huge step in saving our planet…and the animals we share it with.
As EARTH DAY approaches (April 22nd), join me in thinking about five more things that we can give up in favour of a healthier life, a healthier planet and a richer experience on earth. On this journey, I’ve discovered that I still have far to go before I’m living the life that I have imagined, however living mindfully inspires me to do more. I feel empowered knowing that we all vote with our consumer dollars and I’m consciously aware that change happens only when we start using those dollars wisely.
And before I close I wanted to share a recipe that I made recently for a healthy, triple berry muffin, without SUGAR! Talk about doing something and then there being another spin off. I love baking for my family but I’m passionate about eliminating crack , oops, sugar from our diet. I think we can do one thing and allow something even bigger to come into our lives. Good health! Happy Children! a Blessed Planet!
Triple Berry, No Sugar Muffins
2 1/4 cups flour…I like to use 1/2 white and 1/2 whole wheat
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp orange rind grated
1 cup mixed frozen berries
2/3 cup butter melted
2/3 cup liquid honey
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk…I use almond milk
Directions
In a small bowl mix the berries with the cinnamon.Set aside.
In a large bowl, mix the rest of the dry ingredients, along with the grated orange rind.
In a medium bowl, mix the butter and the honey. Add the slightly beaten eggs and the milk.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the milk mixture.
Now fold in the cinnamon and berries.
Remember to only mix until combined…muffins do not turn out well when over mixed
Spray muffin tin…and for regular sized muffins, spoon the batter filling each tin about 3/4’s. ….however I like mine bigger.
Finally, if you want a bit more of something….try a sprinkle of cut up walnuts…a healthy addition too.
Bake in preheated oven 400 degrees F for 15 to 18 minutes
Although this recipe makes 12 regular sized muffins…I like them big so I double the recipe and it makes 18 muffins for our family….but oh, they go fast so get ready to make another batch soon.
I used the triple berries from Super Store and some honey that I’ve had in the cupboard for ages….what a hit!
I made these muffins last Thursday, on wear a sports jersey to school day, in memory of the Humboldt Bronco’s. The kid’s didn’t bat an eye when I told them they were no sugar muffins….”can you make more?” is all I heard.
Since I will start work later this week at my seasonal gardening gig, and this will be my last blog post for the week, I thought I would share a YouTube video called, “Earth Day.” I hope it inspires you to take a moment and look around your part of the world…and bless it. This is our home, let’s take good care of it, if not for ourselves, for our children and their children, and all the creatures great and small who we share the world with.
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
I missed writing my minimalist Monday post yesterday. Partly, due to the fact that our three youngest children were playing with their youth orchestra at a music festival out of town, and partly due to the fact that I’m oh so very sad.
Victoria, William and Kathryn, on our way to the Kelowna music festival
The little girls warming up….I can hear them CLEARLY, even though everyone was warming up…that’s a funny thing about being a mom….you can always pick our your child’s voice in the crowd, or in this case…their violin.
William warms up intently….he really enjoys playing cello and during the actual performance his head and facial expressions were expressive….way to go Will….you guys got GOLD!
You have heard me say this before; “we are all connected.” And never do we feel it more than when there is a tragedy. When I heard the news about the Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Bronco’s hockey team’s bus crash last Friday, my heart broke; so many lives lost, and so many families changed forever. What I keep thinking about over and over is why. The accident was so bizarre and out of the blue. I mean, if there had been a terrible blizzard, maybe one could wrap their head around it, but there doesn’t seem to be any other reason, other than the bus was at the intersection at the wrong time. As my son Clark said, “what makes these events tragic, is how random they are.”
The YouTube video below by Lorri Brewer illustrates how connected we truly are….
Having been changed forever when my father was killed in a truck accident when I was a young child, I have a clear sense of the magnitude of a family’s loss. And being a parent, whose worst nightmare would be to lose a child, this accident hits me deeply.
And as if that wasn’t enough horror in our world, there was yet another chemical weapon attack in Syria, where once again, crimes against humanity have occurred. I’ve been crying deep inside for the victims of this most recent poisoning and all the families effected in the bus/truck accident. How do we go on amidst constant tragedies in the world? How do we support one another?
Here is one way another grieving person (Sylvie Kellington) chose to help the Bronco’s families with; “A Go Fund Me, :page. We can all help to make a difference.
It felt, so flippant writing about another way to become more minimal and environmentally proactive this week. While those things are important, at least to me, stopping and feeling the pain from loss seemed more appropriate right now. Some would say, “oh Lee, stop watching the news shows, or stop reading the news on line.” But if I did that, I’d feel like I was turning my back on people’s pain and grief. As hard as this is on my heart, I want to be impacted by their darkest days. I want to be reminded, that in a blink of an eye, our lives can change. We are all living on this large, spinning planet; gravity holding us to the earth, but in more ways than one are we truly one family. And we need being reminded of that. Because, although we may not be able to avoid horrific, random accidents, we can make a change with regards to how we treat each other, and make a stand on how dictators around the world are acting.
How can we move forward with hope in our hearts and allow healing to occur. How can we change what is happening in our world to our fellow humans?
I ask these questions and seek the answers and thought I would share an article with links that I came across on the net. Since I’m not a psychologist, or a grief counselor, I needed to find ways to process the most recent events and the following article and links inside of it have been beneficial to me. Maybe, you too, would find them helpful. Check out: We humans~How to be More Hopeful, written on Apr 3, 2018 by Kara Cutruzzula
It was a timely article for me and highlights eight Ted talk speakers, who are inspiring. I particularly appreciated the writer, Andrew Solomon, who said:
“You need to take the traumas and make them part of who you’ve come to be, and you need to fold the worst events of your life into a narrative of triumph, evincing a better self in response to things that hurt.”
“Grief is like the ocean;
it comes in waves,
ebbing and flowing.
Sometimes the water is
calm, and sometimes it
is overwhelming. All we
can do is learn to swim.”
Vicki Harrison
While I would love to crawl under the covers today or to sink deep into a fiction novel, that flies me far away from real life issues, I am choosing instead to stay connected with others and “listen deeply and intentionally,” as Dave Isay, founder of the NYC-based nonprofit StoryCorps suggests, allowing others to share their story of love, wisdom and courage, to fill me up, instead of depleting me. As he says, “it can sometimes feel like you’re walking on holy ground,” when you listen to these stories.
And if there was ever a time I need that, we ALL need that on this earth, it’s now. It’s when we break open and allow grief to change us, that we return to the NOW, and remember what’s truly important.
“Simply Loving each other”….and maybe that is my minimalist post after all…because nothing is more simple and yet powerful than that!
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Welcome to another Minimalist Monday post. In a few short hours, the last Monday of Spring break will be over and everyone will be back to their respective schools/jobs. It was a fabulous break in so many ways. No we didn’t go to Hawaii, or to Mexico, like many of our children’s friend’s families. One family even went to Cuba and Will said another is off to England for a month. WOW! It was wonderful none the less, although we rarely left our subdivision. Sometimes, keeping things quiet, relaxed and simple are the best ways to enjoy a break.
At least in my opinion.
I continued to get more pruning done since I last wrote. David and Clark also accomplished a lot. They took most of the second wooden retaining wall down and hauled it to the land fill. All 800 pounds of it~! Once Harrison’s attic space is complete, (David is working every spare moment on it) we can get going on the second river bed rock wall above the pool. And then we can plant it with herbs, and edible flowers, which is perfect for our pollinators. Check out the plants that pollinators love.
Do you see all that old retaining wood in the middle of the bed…well David and Clark finally cut that up and hauled it away. We are one step closer to the next rock wall being built!
We concluded the Easter Egg hunt in the attic space we are building for Harrison, who will be home from University in three weeks!When it’s finally done we can start working on the rock wall again.
The children practiced their music, their math and their reading everyday in the morning and then spent the rest of the day outside riding bikes, playing in our play ground, or jumping on the trampoline. We even invited a few friends over to play, which was nice for the children to reconnect with their friends, since two weeks is a LONG time when you are six and eight. Grace even had a friend over.
Our Easter Weekend was more minimal than is past years and started out with a good April Fool’s joke–or at least I thought it was one. On Easter Sunday the children burst into our bedroom really early and exclaimed, “it’s snowing!” I laughed sleepily into my pillow, “oh that’s a good one guys.” “No, really mom, it’s snowing!” they all chimed in unison, as they opened our bedroom curtains to show a white out outside our bedroom window.
Saturday had been glorious. Okay, maybe a bit brisk, but the sun was shining and the sky was mostly blue. What had happened? The sky was now heavy with white clouds, and big, fluffy flakes were gently falling, covering the ground in a thick quilt of more white. No green was showing. “Ahhhh!” I said, collasping into my pillow and pulling the comforter over my head.
David, laughed and got out of bed to take the kids to the kitchen for Sunday breakfast. Normally, it’s their tradition to make pancakes and waffles with fruit on Saturday and Sunday, but since it was Easter, there were cinnamon buns and everyone was looking forward to that treat. “Do you want anything mom,” they asked as they left my bedroom. “Spring,” I said, and promptly went back to sleep. I dreamed a weird dream about our neighbours ripping out all their lawn and laying down carpet, upon which they exclaimed , “It’s so easy to keep clean. You just vacuum it!”
I woke up a while later rather groggy, residue from my dream still lingering, and stumbled into the bathroom. I was shocked to see blue sky. The grass was even green. Had I dreamed it had been snowing a few hours earlier? “Where did the snow go?” I yelled towards the kitchen, in which David replied, “all melted!” That was the strangest Easter morning I have ever experienced in all our years in our little town. Now when we lived in Calgary, Alberta, many years ago, that wouldn’t have been an uncommon occurrence, but not in the Okanagan. (Do you doubt global warming when you wake up to a blizzard on Easter Sunday in the Okanagan?)
Needless to say, I flew into action as I didn’t want to waste a moment of this promising day. I had much to do. Get the turkey in the oven, ice the bunny, carrot cake, I had made the night before. Peel all the vegetables and generally get ready for our Sunday dinner. Clark and David were hauling the broken down retaining wall out of our yard and into David’s company truck, which he had for the weekend so it was my job to get the scavenger clues distributed for our Easter egg hunt.
No time to waste!
The kids helped me decorate our carrot cake/bunny cake
Ta Da….Bunny 2018
While I took the little kids to their orchestra rehearsal for their upcoming festival, Grace iced the sugar cookies she had made…they were delicious with a hint of almond in the icing, yum!
These sugar cookies turned out perfectly….thank you Grace!
Grace agreed to take the little ones for a walk while I set out the clues around our yard and the day was well on it’s way. As I was moving through the yard, dropping clues among plants and faeries, I was thinking about how great this spring break was for our family. I was also pondering what I wanted to write about for this minimalist Monday and suddenly it came to me. Over spring break we did a few things in the name of minimalism.
Grace took the kids for a walk, while I put out all the Easter egg hunt clues…See what a nice day it turned out to be. You would never know it had snowed heavily earlier in the day and everything was white.
Only seven of us around the table this year…small but lovely. Happy Easter!
The first step to moving towards minimalism is:“let go of what doesn’t serve you any longer.” But it’s a constant process. Last summer, at a golf tournament, David won a golf bag and putter. They were both good quality but nothing David needed, nor did our sons, who also play a bit of golf. So one night, David did a bit of sleuthing to see what these items would sell for and then he listed them on Kijiji. Within a day he had two people interested and by day two he had sold the items.
Sold…bag and putter and no longer collecting dust in the garage!
The man that bought them was thrilled with the price and the value and kept saying, “this is just what I have been looking for.” David felt really great about selling the items and knew that they would be put to good use. The money also came in handy, as we were able to help out our two University sons with a bit of money to tide them over until the semester ends.
Win/Win!
Then a few days later the twins invited a friend over for a play date. As it turns out their friend has a little brother. Bonus! I pulled out Will’s old bike with training wheels and the big wheel tricycle that we have been tripping over and asked the mom if she thought her little guy could use them. She smiled brightly and said she would gladly take them, as they can always use more outdoor toys. I smiled too, as we tucked them into the back of her van.
Will’s little bike with training wheels and the Big Wheel, found a new home!
Walking back to our house with a tiny bit emptier garage, I suddenly felt lighter. I was so inspired by letting go of these items, that I cleaned the whole garage. Once it was done, we could actually find what we were looking for. The rest of spring break was even better, as the little ones could wheel their bikes, scooter and plasma cars, in and out of the garage without bumping into things that they no longer played with.
Win/Win!
And so while we are well along the path towards minimalism, it reminded me that you have to be ever vigilant and get rid of stuff as soon as you recognize it is no longer serving you. Although we did a huge declutter, a few years ago, I am always combing through drawers and closets to make sure we never get into that space again. It reminded me that it’s so easy to let the bigger stuff stay because it’s not like you can just donate it in a bag to Good Will. And speaking of Good Will, I just saw a CBC, “Marketplace,” show, discussing what happens to all our used clothing. Check it out!
If you think that someone is happily using your donated clothing, think again. I had no idea, but most of the clothes that gets donated, ends up in land fills, either in our country, or abroad. It was shocking. And so, as we make a list of what our children need in the way of new clothing, ’cause they are growing out of everything, I’m going to be a mindful consumer this spring. I will try to purchase fewer items of good quality so we can wash them again and again and they continue to look great. Also, by buying good quality, when you do let them go, the chances of them being used until they are truly worn out is better. People appreciate good quality cotton clothing.
Well, that concludes my thoughts for this Monday. If I don’t post it soon it will be Tuesday…PROBABLY will be, as I’m on the west coast and it’s already April 3rd where my blogging site is located. Anyway, it’s all good! I hope you enjoyed your break and if you too are moving in the direction of becoming a minimalist, the next time you trip over something in your house, garage, or yard, set it aside and find a home for it. A place that will appreciate it and the side benefit is that you will feel lighter as you move along this journey we call life.
One final thing I want to leave you with is a prayer. Part of taking a minimalist approach this Easter was to remind our children that it’s not about the Easter bunny and getting stuff. While we all enjoy a bit of chocolate, I wanted to teach them why Christians celebrate this holiday. I pulled out a few of my treasured childhood Christian related books, and we read bible stories. Will, Kate and Tori sat quietly, attentively, listening to the stories of how Easter came to be. Finally we found a lovely sweet prayer at the end of one of the books that resonated with all of us. I hope you enjoy it as much as our little ones did and I hope you know too, how much you are loved.
God Whispers to us in our hearts:
“Do not fear, I am here
And I love you, my dear,
Close your eyes and sleep tight
For tomorrow will be bright~
All is well, dear child.
Good night.”
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
The Price of Anything is the Amount of Life You Exchange For It
It’s been the wackiest first week of spring break. We thought the nice weather was finally with us, but then out of the blue, it started snowing. Everyone was shocked. Normally by the time that my sister J, blows out her birthday candles on the 19th, Spring is well on its way. By the way, did you know that the first day of spring changes year by year? Huh? That is something I just found out this week. But anyway, whether it’s the 20th or the 21st, someone should tell Mother Nature that the white, cold stuff is persona non grata around here.
.
As if the kids hadn’t seen snow all winter, they were excited to see one last snow fall this spring….or will it be?Even our Siamese cat, Ryuuki was rather shocked.
Clark brought me home this tea mug, “Irish Blessing,” when he and Alyssa were in Ireland last year.
And the next day, I dug through my “seeds of hope,” box and quickly potted up a few dozen of my favourite seeds; four different kinds of tomatoes, three kinds of squash, plus pumpkin, and several varieties of flowers. I am planning to work once again at my gardening gig later this spring, where I can buy beautiful plants, but I find it fulfilling to start some of my plants from seeds. Plus, I find that the plants are stronger and more resilient when they have already grown a season in my garden.
I started a few dozen plants on March 18th, which is about 8 weeks before I’m going to plant them out in my garden
I place the pots in a south facing window and even though we have had some cold early spring days, after one week the tomatoes are up.
Well, that’s a peek into our first week of spring break and now I will get on with my second, “Minimalist Monday, ” topic; “Pruning Fruit Trees and Hair. “
WHAT?
Yes, if you are like my husband David, you are probably wondering what pruning fruit trees and hair have to do with minimalism. When I told him what I was planning to write, he looked at my oddly. But hang in there with me and I will try to tie the two together.
First, if you are visiting my blog for the first time, and the word “homestead, ” drew you here, you may be interested in the subject of pruning fruit trees. I’m all about making or growing what we use and like to eat, so several years ago we started a mini orchard in our back forty. Nine years ago this fall to be exact, as our son Mitchell was still home, (he’s just finishing up his four year degree at University this spring) he helped us dig the holes we needed for our trees. I’ll never forget the sky growing ominously darker as we were digging the holes for the trees. By the time we were finished planting, we were all drenched from the pounding rain. Mitchell was smiling. He has always loved the rain. I was smiling too, as fall is a good time to plant fruit trees, and I knew they were getting a good watering that first night in their new home.
The other way I remember the age of our fruit trees, is that I’d saved the placenta after our son William had been born in June 2009. The placenta was in our big freezer all summer waiting to be settled somewhere in our yard. Will, if you are wondering where the placenta was planted, check out the picture of you below behind the Spartan Apple tree. Strangely enough, it’s the tree that always produces the BEST fruit.
I knew that all over the world and in different cultures, the placenta was saved and planted or used in a ritual. For instance, for the Navajo Indians in North America, it is customary for them to bury a child’s placenta within the sacred four corners of the tribe’s reservation as a binder to ancestral land and people. The Navajos also bury objects with it to signify the profession they hope the child will pursue
I didn’t follow any particular belief or ritual, but I had waited a long to for William to come to earth and it had been a struggle to conceive him. I wanted the tangible thing that connected us to each other, and also helped him grow inside me, to be placed next to the roots of something that would bear delicious fruit.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand; pruning fruit trees. When we prune a fruit tree, it helps the tree’s production, growth, appearance and health. And that is where I link minimalism into this subject; Thinning branches that are diseased or growing inward, preventing light and sunshine into the centre of the tree, is a bit like how I’m trying to create my life. I’m looking at each aspect of my life; the things surrounding me, the people I associate with, the ideas that flow through my mind, and even my hair, are all things that can hinder or help me in creating a rich, inspired life. So this last week, as I stepped back from my fruit tree and decided which branch needed to go, I was also thinking inward about what I wanted to prune in my life to bring more light and sunshine into the centre of my being.
Isn’t it amazing how nature is ALWAYS teaching us?
You can hardly see William behind this Spartan apple tree which needs a good thinning….kind of like how we live our life. Until we let go of stuff, we are unable to clearly see ourselves and what we truly want in our life in order to create our BEST life.
And here it is after the thinning process…although I realize now that with the Birch tree in the background it’s hard to clearly see the branches I have removed. Suffice it to say, the central leader is nicely displayed and the branches that were crossing over and moving inward are removed.
When I finished pruning the last tree, I exhaled. It’s a big job, but time well spent as I know we will all appreciate eating the organically grown fruit later this year. It’s really satisfying growing your own food and knowing you don’t have to rely on anyone else.
Now we just need some sunshine.
And that brings me to the hair aspect of my post. “Hair, hair, beautiful hair,” that song from the Broadway play, “Hair,” is playing over and over in my head, like a CD on repeat mode, this Minimalism Monday. Just like pruning our fruit trees this week, taking care of our family’s hair took a lot of my time. Well, to be accurate, it takes up a lot of my time every day, since I still have young children, who need help maintaining it. And as I was analyzing the branches to prune in my orchard, I was also thinking about the changes I have made caring for my hair, and also my family’s hair. The first big step towards change occurred when William was just a baby and we were planting his placenta under that apple tree. We were starting to really think about living more sustain-ably. Suddenly, caring for six heads, seemed overwhelming to me, both in time and financially, and it occurred to me that cutting hair was not rocket science. It was something that clearly I could do myself. I looked around and realized, I had a houseful of of hair. Curly hair, straight hair, thin hair, thick hair, blonde hair, brown hair, baby hair, well you get the idea. All sorts of hair to learn to cut.
Also, right around the time that our sixth little person was born, I suddenly had no time to book hair appointments, or even take time to drive to them, wait for the stylist, sit in the chair, listening to canned music that unnerved me, and then I felt annoyed having to pay for a cut that I often didn’t even like. David too, was tired of going to his high end stylish and paying a small fortune every 6 weeks and he often came home saying it was too short, or the stylist had kept the top too long. Then there was the expense!
So, I bought a good pair of scissors, an electric trimmer with graduated attachments, a few combs, some clips, a spray water bottle, and started reading up on various style cuts for women, men and children. (Now there are tons of YouTube videos on cutting hair)
I went to shop in town called “Sally’s” and bought what I needed to cut hair
But where does minimalism come in you may ask. Well, just like in pruning fruit trees to produce the best fruit, when you have a good hair plan, perhaps a minimalist style and maintenance, it allows you the luxury of more time and money to live the life you desire. Now, I’m not suggesting that you say “au revoir,” to a beloved stylist, but if you are like me, and feel unsettled being in a busy salon where people are chatting away all around you, scissors are going snip, snip, snip and blow dryers are screaming a whirling noise, not to mention that canned music, then you may want to reconsider how you are managing your hair. If you haven’t gone there yet, just think about cutting your own hair, cutting your partners hair and certainly your children’s hair.
From a minimalist point of view, hair that is either really short or really long is the best way to go in my opinion. While short hair may need more maintenance to keep it short, it frees up your time daily in styling. And long hair doesn’t require as many cuts, and although it may take longer to shampoo and condition, it’s easy to do every day. Wear it down, pull it back into a low pony tail and your done. (And who’s to say that you need to shampoo it at all. Our son, Mitchell, does the “no poo.” He wets his hair when he showers but that’s it. He never shampoos it with chemical rich hair products and he has thick, glossy, healthy hair)
The other plus about cutting your own hair, is that you don’t have to listen to what a professional feels is the right cut for you or get lured into buying hair product that just sits in your bathroom. Usually a stylist wants you to cut your hair short so they can keep you coming back regularly to maintain it. (Okay, I may be cynical here but that’s been my experience) For instance, I have had hair dressers say that since my hair is fine and straight, I should wear it no longer than my shoulders. Well, I’m done with that. Right now my hair is moving way past my shoulders and it’s actually starting to get wavy. While many may think it’s not as flattering as my usual bob, I’m loving it. It’s now loose and relaxed, like how I want to live.
And as for men, I really dig beards that are so popular now. If I were a man, I would be relieved not to have to shave. Saves time, saves money on razors, shaving cream, and is warm in the winter. Also, I love men with no hair. I think bald is very attractive in my opinion and environmentally friendly, as it saves on hair product! Now a bald man with a beard….ahhhh! A great combi.
I realize most people have strong opinions about hair and I’m not saying that you need to minimize your hair routine etc to be a minimalist but hey, just think about where you are spending your time and your money. Is that where you want it to go?
Check out my kitchen salon, “Hair by Hope.” Our younger kids have NEVER been to a stylist and personally I think they have great cuts. William’s hair is blonde, curly and beautiful. Most of the boys in his grade three class have short, I mean buzzed hair, which is fine and probably easy for their parents to do every day, but for William, he looks best with locks and he loves his hair longer too.
Victoria Before
Victoria after…she has wavy hair that looks great in a bob but we are going to grow it out
Victoria after…we pull back the bangs with a clip to keep the hair out of her eyes
Kathryn Before
Kathryn After, her bangs are grown out
Kathryn After…Could a stylist do any better?
William Before….yes his hair is starting to get crazy
William After…he asked me not to take too much hair off but it’s tamed down now
Kathryn, William, Victoria, AFTER….ready to go and play
Me, cutting Victoria’s hair. When I cut my hair, I flipped it forward and cut it straight across. Then I cut the sides with a bit of layering. It’s a lot longer than it looks in this picture.
Cutting hair is not rocket science!
Grace has thick, long hair and it got this way from me just trimming it regularly. When she used to go to the salon they would take a few inches off every time she went and it never seemed to grow….now it’s growing and looks amazing
Grace After…SMILING.
To finish up my day at the kitchen salon, I did Clark’s hair too
Clark After….he’s got a bit of a beard and mustache starting. This cut will last for about 8 weeks and cost NOTHING~~~
So that’s what has been going on around here this last week. Cutting hair and pruning trees. Oh and meditating. Are you meditating with me? I hope someone is. I tried to get my family ommming with me but they just looked at me like, “I have better things to do with my time!” That’s okay. I get that. I’ve really enjoyed the daily meditation sessions with Deepak and Oprah. I love when Deepak says as the end of the guided meditation section, ” I’ll mind the time and when it’s time to end, you will hear me ring a soft bell.” Today’s mantra was, “Siddho Hum,” meaning, “I am perfect.” And isn’t that what it’s all about really? When we come from a place of self love, feeling perfect, then we can begin to really live. It’s not really about pruning fruit trees or cutting hair, it’s about living in the here and now. Mindfulness is the key. Stripping what doesn’t work for us, creates a bit more room for us to find our true nature. The meditation theme has been about shedding weight in all aspects of our life and for me, staying in the present moment, and letting go of my story, is my biggest challenge. Am I alone?
Are you moving in the direction of living an inspired life? If you get frustrated that things aren’t exactly how you would like, just remember we are all in the process. That’s what makes this earthly experience so delightful. We have choice, and can choose to grow fruit trees in our backyard, grow our hair long, or cut it all off, we can choose to meditate or not. In the big scheme nothing matters. “So hum,” is what I tell my children when they get going in all directions. It means, “I am.” And when you come back to that place, there is peace. There is love. That is where the most inspired life lives.
But on a more earthly subject, I’d love to hear what you think is a minimalist hair cut. What works for you and makes you happy with regards to your hair? And I hope you come back for a visit as we made Sauerkraut recently and I want to share our results with you so, STAY TUNED.
All through writing this post, I was humming this tune…check out this video ’cause if you haven’t lived in the 60’s you may not know it, “Hair” by the Cowsills
Until we connect again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
With spring on our doorstep, I feel light and free; as if I could accomplish anything! It’s also the first Monday of spring break and I have two, glorious weeks to spend with my youngest children. The endless days spread out enticingly before us. We have a long list of plans and much to do but first I wanted to start, what I hope will be a regular Monday blog post throughout this spring centered on my favourite topic; Minimalism.
Spring is the perfect time to shed our heavy coats from winter and lighten our load. Spring is a good time to open the windows, release all the stale air, and let go of whatever we have accumulated in the cold, hoarding season. Personally, speaking, I hold onto far more than I normally would, in the belief I may need it someday; especially if winter goes on and on.
I’m ready to do a major spring cleaning with some new, green, homemade cleaning products, we are letting go of our garbage service, (who needs to pay it if you are moving in the direction of a zero-waste lifestyle?) and letting go also of our cable t.v. service. Yes, we are one of those die hard families still holding onto that archaic service.
Today, my first minimalism topic is meditation. When I’m in a meditative state, I feel light and free, totally weightless, and part of the greater whole. I love that feeling! I don’t know why I don’t meditate more often, but life often gets in the way. (or rather I allow it to) I think we as humans like to suffer. We like to drag all our earthly crap with us daily; whether it be actual material stuff, or a relationship that no longer nurtures us. Perhaps, you have a few pounds on your earth suit that you would like to lose? Or it may be letting go of the fear that hounds us, when we turn into most media. Seeing images of hate, racism, misogynistic behavior, greed, I could go on and on, is not good for our well being. And yet, we tune in and let those images and words into our lives, into our homes.
Why?
After meditating, I feel more peaceful. I’m able to shift easier, as life bombards me with often tragic events occurring all over the world. After being still, I feel kinder to myself, more loving and worthy. I deserve to live my best life ever. When I meditate, I can control what is going on in my mind; in my life. It helps to balance me, keeping me in a state where I can be a gate keeper for only goodness flowing into my life.
And so, I invite you to join me today, in Deepak Chopra and Oprah’s, 21 day meditation challenge. Think of it as the first step in your minimalism journey this spring. If we can let go of just one thing that is not working for us, shedding it from our lives, then we have more energy to be more loving and kind to ourselves and those around us. In that space, we may also be able to let go of even more that isn’t working for us. Seems like a win/win to me.
It starts TODAY so sign up; it’s free. Really! Yes, totally free. I’ve done a number of their meditation challenges and this one really speaks to me, as I want to shed much from my life this spring. It’s a process in which I’m always in the state of but in my opinion, spring is the perfect time to shed what isn’t working for us any longer.
The following is an excerpt explaining further what the challenge is about:
Shedding the Weight: Mind, Body and Spirit begins March 19! Together we’ll embark on a boundless meditation journey to shed the burdens that hold us back, so we can start shining from the inside out.
You’ll learn how to:
Release heaviness and toxicity – on every level
Break free from unhealthy habits using the light of your own awareness
Discover what truly nourishes your entire being to bring newfound freshness, inspiration, and joy into your life
If you don’t see this post for a few days, they still allow you to register and you can catch up. I hope you take advantage of this opportunity as it could change your life.
Let’s move on the path of shedding worthless weight together.
Hey and before I close, I want to say Happy Birthday to my sister J!…one of my three incredible, “soul sisters.” She has taught me MUCH, on this journey we call life. J, I hope your day is FULL of love!
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
“It is the first mild day of March. Each minute sweeter than before…There is a blessing in the air. ~William Wordsworth~
Guess what?
As I knock on my wooden desk, I have to tell you that the last three days have been sunny and glorious. The snow is slowly melting and the birds are starting to sing.
Dare I say, winter is on the threshold of bidding me goodbye?
This a picture from our deck this past weekend
This past weekend, I donned my country sweater. The one my step dad Bud used to wear with the brown, wooden buttons and pictures of horses in the knit. It’s too big for me, but I like it. I smell old spice when I wear it and feel him walking next to me. It reminds me of a simpler time, when we lived as a family together in Creston, in our big heritage house up on the hill. In spring, shovel in hand, he used to head out to the garden and double dig the well rotted horse manure he had dumped on it in the fall. I would wave goodbye, leather bridle over my shoulder, heading out to the fields where our horses were boarded. As I rode “Blondie,” my big Palomino horse, I would sing at the top of my lungs, John Denver’s song, “Country Roads,” and Blondie’s long ears would flicker back and forth and she would step out alert and bright.
With these memories floating through my brain, and Bud by my side, I headed out to clean the chicken coop. To me, that’s the first rites of spring. Weird, but I like to do it. The very first thing I did was unplugged their heat lamp and their water font. I wrapped up the electric cord and dropped it into my husband’s work bench drawer with a determined plop and went back to the coop, clomping in my black winter boots.
As I started to scoop out the old wood shavings, I laughed watching our four hens tip toe across the frozen, still snow covered tundra of our back yard. They gratefully hopped up onto the exposed dirt of the garden. The little kids came out to join us and gleefully started bouncing on the trampoline, which was no longer weighed down by a pile of snow. They started taking turns having rolling and crazy jumping contests, while the sun glinted off their shiny heads. As the kid’s laughed, I could hear the chickens happily “pluck, plucking,” while they gleefully scratched in the quickly thawing earth.
In this atmosphere, the seeds for this post started to germinate.
You may remember me mentioning in a few of my past posts how over and done I was with winter. It was only after one of our last snow falls that I finally conceded, dug deeper under my winter comforter, allowing the cold season to follow it’s natural course, without further grumbling on my part. It’s not like it was going to leave any faster, and being depressed was making me miserable.
And so I surrendered.
Surrender is a funny thing. You’d think once you wave your white flag and give up, that what you want most of all moves farther away from you and yet, the reverse is true.
William brought home this little snow man on Friday. I’m thinking it’s the last winter craft that will be coming home
I learned this lesson early in my adult life, although I didn’t start putting it into conscious practice until I was over forty. I’ll never forget falling in love in my early twenties with someone who I thought I could easily spend the rest of my life with. Rob and I dated the fall and winter when I turned twenty one. I was enamored with his intellect, humour, and his kindness. One of my last memories I have with him, was skiing at Lake Louise in the Rockies. It had been a blissful day, gliding down the runs, but by the end, every muscle in my body screamed for a hot bath. As we were driving home though, it started to snow heavily and when we spotted a car pulled over with it’s hood up, instead of passing like everyone else, Rob pulled his truck over, got out and went to help the driver. I don’t remember what he ended up doing; something mechanical. He liked solving mechanical problems. It wasn’t long though, before he jumped back into the truck with a smile on his face. In that moment I fell deeper in love with him.
A long term relationship was not to be however and we broke up. The next thing I heard, he was dating a classmate back in my old hometown. The year after they were married. I was devastated after we broke up and my heart was hurting. As spring unfolded though, and the beauty of the season with it, I decided to swear off men, letting go of any thoughts that love was in my future. I planned to make a good life for myself. I had a job I loved, a comfortable place to live and friends who were good companions. I didn’t need men in my life.
There is some miracle that flies out into the great Universe when we let go. It’s like a bird, light and peaceful, drifting higher and higher until you can no longer see it in the sky. And when you have forgotten all about it, when you have started to laugh again, that bird gently finds it’s way back to you, settles on your shoulder, and when you glance at it, you notice it’s feathers are dusted with grace and glisten with a golden orb of hope.
After my relationship with Rob was over, my best and dear friend Lynne and I joined the Calgary Ski club. While spring is maybe not the best time to join a ski club, that group organized fun events all year long. The Friday night socials were a highlight, with something fun being planned every week. Of course, at the club there was great music, the drinks were cheap and the evenings were spent laughing with friends. It was there, when I was decidedly single, and happily proclaiming my status, that I met my future husband, David.
I was not in the least bit interested in getting involved with another man. He had other plans though and my mom’s words, “you can never have too many friends,” rang in my ears. Slowly we got to know each other. He became a friend and eventually, he wooed me back into the idea that love was worth it. He was the man that I was meant to be with for this lifetime. The rest is history, as they say.
The point of that little story was to illustrate how the law of attraction works in our life. When we want something so bad, no amount of pushing and pulling will ever bring it closer. It’s not until we let go and surrender that a void occurs, allowing what is really meant for us to move into our life.
And as this quote below illustrates, the law of attraction and the wisdom in surrendering, has been recognized for centuries.
“Let your mind be quiet, realizing the beauty of the world, and the immense, the boundless treasures that it holds in store.
All that you have within you, all that your heart desires, all that your nature so specially fits you for–that or the counterpart of it waits embedded in the great Whole, for you. It will surely come to you.
Yet equally surely not one moment before its appointed time will it come. All your crying and fever and reaching out of hands will make no difference.
Therefore do not begin that game at all.”
~English Poet, Edward Carpenter~(1844-1929)
And so, Cheryl married Rob and together they had four children. They were married for 32 years until he sadly died of cancer in 2014. I will never forget his smile or his kind heart.
In my forties, the art of surrender finally came home to me in a conscious way. David and I had been trying so hard to have our fifth baby, one that I thought would complete our family, not knowing something even bigger was destined for our family. It took a long time to get pregnant. Then finally, we did and I was jubilant. All too soon, we discovered that our “soulbaby’s” heart beat had stopped. I eventually miscarried at the end of the first trimester. That winter was full of pain and grief. As I let go of the idea of ever having any more children, with it came a moment of grace. The following Spring, as the world was waking up once again to the warming earth, and me with it, I got pregnant again. Our daughter, Grace Elizabeth, was born just after I turned forty three, the following December. I often call her my surrender baby.
Even after her birth though, and the true understanding of the power of letting go washed over me, I sometimes get caught up in the act of pushing life, only to remember that no amount of gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands will bring what I want into my life. All I need to do is open my hands, palm side up and offer myself up to the great good of the Whole.
And once again, the early days of spring are almost here. Was it me finally surrendering to winter that made it appear?
Is there something you desire more than anything right now? Are you working hard to create a life or bring something into your world? Stop and think about how you are trying to manifest your dream and surrender your desire. MOVE INTO THE FLOW OF ALLOWING and watch it whoosh into your life. (often it comes even better than anything you could EVER dream)
A great mantra that I have used many times since Grace’s birth is “Let go and let God.”
When we let go, and live in a state of gratitude and appreciation, good things always flow our way.
And that finally brings me to my final story and a lesson in making almond milk.
On the weekend, as I started working outside, close to Mother Earth, cleaning the coop, picking up crinkled and dry leaves and digging them into the garden, sweeping up the sidewalks and drive way, I started to get frustrated. I have so much I want to do to create a richer, more sustainable life for myself and my family. At times, it feels like I’m walking a tight rope, holding all the things I want to implement into our lives, while below is a consumer driven society that beckons us to live a different way than our heart’s calling. I work hard at not falling.
I came inside the kitchen fuming over my thoughts and exhaled them all over my oldest son, who was making a pot of tea. Now Clark, as you may know, has a Science degree. An Earth and Environmental science degree to be exact, so he gets where I’m coming from. He cares about our planet But he’s also been marinaded in the art of surrender and allowing for years.
He’s been exposed to quotes like the following one by Rumi, on our large kitchen chalk board; and of course we have had many great philosophical discussions on the merits of a soul driven life.
Although he comes from a Science base belief system, he understands the art of surrender. At times, I think he’s even perfected it. A demonstration of such is recently, it was me not him, who was wringing her hands, wondering if he would get into law school next fall. He sent off his applications and then calmly went about his life, doing things that made him happy. Spending time with his friends, working out at the gym and making a difference at our local Science Centre. So the other day, I should not have been surprised, when he made an astute observations and brought me up cold. I was talking a mad streak about some of my zero waste ideas, while pouring a cup of raw almonds into a large canning jar and filling it with water. I set the jar on the counter to soak and continued my frustrated vent with him. He listened to all my thoughts and when I took a breath and was silent for a moment he finally said…..
“Mom, are you making almond milk?” I glanced over at the canning jar and said, “Yeah?” “Well, mom,” he said, “maybe you can’t solve the big environmental issues on the earth, but it’s the little things you do each day that make a difference; like making almond milk from scratch.”
“Hmmm, ” I said and smiled.
I rinsed the soaked almonds this morning and made almond milk. While doing so I remembered something I often tell my oldest daughter but I forget to do so myself;
I remembered to, “breathe, relax, trust and enjoy,” and made a note to myself to talk with David about my idea to cancel our weekly garbage pick up. Stay tuned on how the process of surrendering THAT, goes in our life.
And if you’d like to stop buying almond milk from the store, and take little steps with me towards living a more sustainable life, then come on into my kitchen and let’s make some almond milk. You can make it as creamy as you like, you can even add a vanilla bean or any flavouring you like. The best part is you don’t have to drive to the store to get your almond milk. You save fuel, and also the packaging that is used for the almond milk. If you are able to buy your almonds in bulk, using your own jar, or reusable bag, all the better.
Ready to surrender?
Let’s go and make some almond milk….it’s ALL GOOD!
Homemade Almond Milk
Ingredients
1 cup raw almonds, soaked overnight in cool water
5 cups of filtered water, (adjust this according to desired thickness
Pinch of sea salt
Optional: 1 tsp vanilla extract or one vanilla bean, scraped
Optional: Sweeten with 2 pitted dates
Instructions
1. Add your soaked raw almonds, water, salt and any additional options into a high speed blender until creamy and smooth. Keep it running and milk the almonds for 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Using a strainer or a nut milk bag, or even a thin dish towel, let all the liquid run into a jar, and squeeze or press the remaining nut pulp, until all the liquid is extracted. (you can use the remaining pulp for any baked goods)
3. Cover the jar and place in the refrigerator but we like to make smoothies out of it, or drink it fresh, or my personal favourite is to add it to my morning oatmeal, and my Earl Grey tea, making a slight London Fog. Yum!
Note…if you do put it in the fridge, make sure to shake the jar well before using as it does separate.
And that is a simple thing we can do today, while singing our hearts out. Join me in singing with John Denver, “Country Roads,”
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
I know it’s a lot of food all in one place but we need serious comfort food around here.
It snowed last night.
Again!
Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate living in a climate where there are four seasons, but this year, I’ve had enough snow. I’m done with winter. I want the snow to melt, for the sun to warm the air, and for some buds to start forming on our trees.
Anyone that isn’t buying into global warming, and the fact that we may have gone too far damaging our Mother Earth, isn’t living my reality. Nor are they recognizing what’s going on all over our planet; sea levels are rising, there’s unusual flooding, the glaciers are melting, storms are raging, and then there are the droughts. In my part of the world winter is going on and on. We are ALL experiencing extreme weather conditions.
At least where we live, we only have to deal with snow storms and icy conditions in the winter, flooding in the spring, forest fires in the summer and then comes fall. That’s the season where we pull up our socks, so we can do it all over again.
Yeah, it’s much worse in other parts of the world so I shouldn’t complain. But watching this winter go on and on, when in the past I would be doing my spring garden clean up, just gets me thinking about how fast things are changing climate wise.
As I popped another chew-able Vitamin D, I picked up our local newspaper. Reading the article on the front page, made me smile and brought a tear to my eye.
I love living in a small community where the big story is “Men brave icy waters to save deer.” As it turned out a group of Okanagan men jumped into action just in time, to ensure a deer didn’t meet her demise in the icy waters of Okanagan Lake.
That story warmed my heart and while I’m still annoyed at the lingering winter weather, I’m happy that I live in a little town where first, a story like this makes front page, and second, there are good citizens who will risk their own lives to save a helpless animal.
I think I can endure winter a bit longer. Maybe this is yet another letting go moment. I mean there isn’t anything I can do about the weather conditions. I can either be grumpy about it, or find something good about it and today, I’m going to smile. It may be winter but there is goodness here.
With that perspective, I looked out at the snow gently falling, like soft angel feathers and I felt sheltered. I took a deep breath and relaxed a bit more into this season; a bit more into this moment.
Besides shifting my perspective, I also am choosing to make our family a warm meal so when they come home tonight we have some comfort food. Since it’s Friday, there’s not a lot in the fridge but with some creativity I can come up with something. (Lately, I like to stretch as far as I can before going shopping; to see how inventive I can become with what we have in our fridge and cupboards and you know what?–there is always something to make to feed our family.
Tonight, in an effort to eat Vegetarian, which helps our planet , I’m spinning our normal meat based, “Shepherd’s Pie,” and using some “Yves Veggie Ground Round.” This is a hamburger- like product and is a good source of protein and low in fat. It’s also really cheap compared to hamburger. I buy a large package, which has four small packages inside. We get three or four dinners for a total of ($10.00) which is amazing. The big news is that eating vegetarian meals helps our planet…see link above. It’s also been known to fool meat loving individuals in our family. When they have to ask me, “is this meat, or your soy thingy,” then you know it’s good.
If you are looking to drop hamburger from your family’s repertoire, but want to ease gently into a plant based, I’d recommend trying the Veggie Ground round.
Come on into my kitchen and we can whip up dinner tonight. I’m thinking the menu will be “Shepherds Pie, a spinach salad, and some cornbread muffins. And for dessert, a mixed berry coffee cake. My sister J brought a bag of frozen raspberries from her harvest last summer, and I have a few blueberries still in the freezer. Making comfort food in the winter, makes me happy.
Let’s get cooking….
Shepherd’s Pie
Ingredients
2 packages of Veggie Ground (The package I buy has four small packs and I use two small packs)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 onion chopped
4 tbsp of flour
1 cup of beef broth, (you can substitute this with a vegetable broth…I buy the organic jars from Costco)
11/2 cups of mixed frozen vegetables
Ground pepper
3 cups of mashed potatoes, (I make mine with lots of garlic and some dill)
Garnish with paprika
Directions
(Peel potatoes, cook them and mash them)
In an large iron skillet, sauté the onions in olive oil until lightly brown, add the veggie ground and break it up, cooking it well. You can season here with pepper and a bit of salt.
Add the flour and mix well, cook for an additional 5 minutes.
Add the beef broth, frozen vegetables and season again with ground pepper.
If your potatoes are mashed, don’t forget to add a nice seasoning…we like to add some dill or garlic to our potatoes.
Now fill a large casserole dish with the veggie ground round mixture and top with the mashed potatoes. Sprinkle with paprika and bake in the oven at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until bubbling hot.
This recipe feeds 4 to 6 people but when I add salad, and cornbread it feeds eight. If our older kids are home, I would just add a bit more ground round and mashed potatoes.
Cornmeal Muffins
Ingredients and Directions
Mix 3/4 cup cornmeal with 1 cup of milk and set aside
Sift together, 11/4 cup flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1/3 cup sugar, set aside
Stir into the cornmeal/milk mixture, 2 beaten eggs, and ½ cup of melted butter(cooled) or vegetable oil and 2 tbsp of liquid honey. Now add the liquid to dry ingredients.
Don’t over mix, it’s okay if there are a few lumps.
Fill prepared muffin pan, filling each cup to ¾’s
Bake in preheated oven 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown around the edges
Eat immediately with some butter….yum….or later with some jam.
And now for dessert:
Berry Coffee Cake…this is a recipe that I’ve made for years and it’s always great but lately, I’ve been making it with coconut oil and I’ve noticed there are never any leftovers. It is a bit more dense but worth the flavour.
Ingredients
1 cup of frozen berries….blueberries or raspberries work best
1 tsp cinnamon
½ cup butter…or coconut oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
11/2 tsp vanilla…or you can use some coconut extract and some vanilla…it’s great together
11/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
2/3 cup milk…I used some almond milk and it turned out great
Directions
Toss Blueberries with cinnamon and set aside
Mix coconut oil or butter with sugar until creamy, add eggs one at a time.
Mix dry ingredients
Add alternatively the milk and the dry ingredients to the oil and sugar mixture, then fold in the berries
Put in a prepared bundt pan
Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes or until golden and toothpick comes out clean
Cool in the pan to allow the berries to set before removing from pan
Once cooled, flip the bundt pan onto a rack and allow it to cool further.
Finally, place it on a serving dish and sprinkle with some icing sugar, or a lemon glaze.
On Friday nights we like to watch “Planet Earth” episodes with our kids on Netflix but I’m thinking they might like to see the following video first. We can make a difference on this planet by the choices we make every day. Today, I’m choosing to settle into the season a bit deeper, to make a vegetarian meal for my family and to get our family talking about the ways we can walk the earth a bit more gently.
Check out the video below. Maybe you can share it with your family and it will generate some meaningful discussion.
My mom loved to smile. Even though she was a child who lived through the tough depression years, even though she was a young woman during World War Two, even though she became a widow at 39, and was left to care for her daughters, she learned the art of smiling.
Random Fact:
If you smile, even if you’re in a bad mood, it will immediately improve your mood, because the simple action of thinking about smiling and using the muscles is enough to trigger happy chemicals in the brain.
As a child, if I woke up grumpy and wandered out of my bedroom with a frown on my face, my mom would tell me to go back to bed and get out the other side with a smile on my face. At the time, it often made me grumpier; I felt like my real feelings were being ignored. In time, I learned the wisdom of this advice.
(Above: My mom, dad, and three older sisters…I’m in mom’s lap)
After my Dad was killed in a truck accident when I was five, my mom moved our family away from our small town of Hope, (yep, I was born in Hope. I like to say literally and figuratively) and moved us to the nearby big city of Chilliwack. People there did not know our story. As a single parent and sole provider, mom took a typing course and got a job as a front desk clerk/receptionist, at one of the larger hotels in Chilliwack.
Mom greeted all the guests with a friendly face and would smile at everyone she met. All this cheerfulness however annoyed one of mom’s co-workers. She apparently hated mom’s smiling countenance, and snarled her negative feelings of mom’s attitude to another co-worker saying, “what does she have to be so happy about?” This other co-worker knew a tiny bit of mom’s history and took a moment to share this with the annoyed co-worker. Nothing further was said, until one day that angry woman approached mom and said, “I know a bit of your story, but what I don’t understand is why you smile so much.”
Mom looked at her seriously and said, “If I don’t smile, I will cry.”
After that, this co-worker became a friend and even she was found smiling from time to time. Also, years later, mom’s brilliant smile and warmth, attracted a man who came to the hotel one day. That man became my step father, “Bud,” and for many years my mom smiled and laughed until Bud had a heart attack and passed away. Mom was just 59 years old. Despite being widowed once again, after grieving another loss, she showed us all how to spread joy with her generous smile.
A Happy Birthday moment…mom would light up the room with her laughter
She taught me much about smiling
It’s been a tough winter for me. As you may know from previous posts I’ve written recently, I’m trying to find a new groove in my life. Our family is changing and I’ve never been great with change. Three of our eight children have left home and each time one of them leaves, it feels like an earth quake has shaken our home. My heart quivers with after shocks for months afterwards. Our oldest son, Clark will be next, as he’s heading off to law school in the fall. Even our youngest, our six year old twins, Kathryn and Victoria, don’t seem to be need me quite as much now that they are BIG grade ones.
Then there is the fact that I don’t do well in the winter. At least not where we live. I think I suffer from “SAD”, (seasonal affective disorder)The Okanagan Valley, in the southern part of British Columbia, Canada, is known for these great inversions. The winter clouds roll in sometime in November and we rarely see any sun until March. Oh, and then there is the bitter cold, and dumps of endless snow. I think I could bare both, if they were accompanied now and then with some sun. Snow is truly magical and I do love this season of bundling up and hibernating, but it’s the sun that gives me the daily lift to feel happy and hopeful.
(Above is a picture from my kitchen window…a break in the clouds finally)
But today, I’m thinking about my mom, thinking about her smile, and also about winter, and this day; February 28th. Six years ago today, my mom had a massive stroke and died. We knew she was declining but I had hoped she would be with us longer. Once we moved her into an extended care home, after a hospital stay, I think she said to herself, “I’m outta here!” Thankfully the weekend before she passed away, (Februrary 28, 2012) there were many golden moments where her light shone.
I brought our twin daughters, who were just starting to crawl over to her new home. As they explored under and around her bed, she smiled at them.
(Above are Victoria and Kathryn, our twins…they made mom laugh with their antics during our last visit with her)
My sister C and her husband D, brought their beautiful golden retriever, “Sunny,” for a visit. As Sunny rested her head on the edge of mom’s bed, looking up at her with compassionate brown eyes, mom smiled.
And when mom would wake from one of her drifting dreams, she would smile gently, saying she had been at the beach with her brother Dick, who had moved on beyond this mortal veil.
When I think of my mom, I smile. I’m thankful I had her for so many years. I’m thankful that I still feel her presence in my life now. Even on my darkest days this winter, she has been close, whispering into my ear, “find something to smile about.”
And yet, I think of mom. I think about all those who aren’t here on earth any longer. If they could come back for one day, what would they say to us? Maybe, “be thankful to be alive? “Be thankful to have the choice to smile.” “Maybe, try to make a difference in this world.” Mother Teresa isn’t here any longer either, but her acts of kindness and her words live on……
Yes, let us meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. And I think peace too. And don’t we need that in the world right now?
And so today, I force the corners of my mouth to go up, instead of down. I think of ways that I can help those who are dealing with serious issues and I ask myself, “what can I do today for them?”
I can smile.
And what else can I do?….well, I can bake a pie and share a family recipe.
Thinking about my mom, makes me think about lemon meringue pies.
OOOOLALA….Delish!
She loved them. Well, she loved anything lemon and so do I. Especially at the end of winter; when I need something tart and zesty to lighten my palate and remind myself that spring is just around the corner.
So I think a good closer for this blog post is to share my recipe for lemon meringue pie, and the homemade crust recipe as well. I made two of these recently and my family inhaled them, literally in two sittings. They must have inherited my mom’s love for lemons. And they too must be starved for sunshine.
So on yet another snowy winter day, please join me in my kitchen and we will start to make the crust which is soooo easy, you won’t believe it. I’ll do the crust and you can start cracking some eggs, separating the yolks from the whites. And we can chat about other ways to help change the world….starting from our own home.
LET’S BEGIN with the…..
Pie Crust Recipe... I can’t take the credit; this is the Tenderflake recipe which is perfect every time!!! Who wants to mess with perfection?
Note: The recipe below makes 6 crusts…which is a lot for most families but I freeze the extra pie crusts and use it for other pies or for my chicken pot pie recipe, which I have to blog about…coming soon… I promise.
Ingredients for Pie Crust
5½cupsor 850g of all-purpose flour
2tspor 10 g salt
1poundor 465 grams Tenderflake® lard, rendered lard, or 1/2 lard and 1/2 butter, cubed
1tablespoonor 15 grams vinegar
1egg, lightly beaten
Ice Water
Instructions to make pie crust
Whisk flour and salt; cut in ice cold fat until it is pea sized or looks like slow cooking raw oats
In a 1 cup liquid measure, combine vinegar and egg; add ice water to make 1 cup
Gradually pour liquid around the edges of the mixture, mixing by hand, adding only enough for dough to cling together
Form gently into a ball; divide into 6 equal portions on counter
Wrap and label portions
Refrigerate for 15-30 minutes if you are using right away, or
Freeze for future use by placing wrapped pastry dough in container, tightly sealed
When ready to use, roll out each portion on lightly floured surface; If pastry dough is sticking, chill for another hour or two
Transfer rolled pastry dough to pie plate
Trim and flute shells or crusts and bake according to your pie recipe
When making crust for lemon meringue pies, you just use ONE bottom crust, , use a fork to prick the sides and the bottom of the pastry crust and place it in the oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes or until it looks golden. (watch closely)
When done, set it aside to cool on a rack
Lemon Meringue Pie Filling….this is where you will use the separated eggs!
Ingredients/Filling
1-1/4 cups sugar
6 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups boiling water
5 egg yolks, beaten (set aside the egg whites to sit at room temperature)
2 tbsp of butter
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tbsp grated lemon rind
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
In a heavy saucepan combine sugar, cornstarch, flour and salt, mixing well. Stir in boiling water. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until thickened, translucent and just starting to bubble. Reduce heat to medium-low and stir for 1 minute more. Remove from heat. Whisk a little of hot mixture into beaten egg yolks; whisk back into the pan with half of the butter. Cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add remaining butter, lemon juice, rind and vanilla; stir until uniformly thick and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside, partially covered.
Ingredients for the Meringue
5 egg whites at room temperature
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
Directions for Meringue
In a bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. (I use my electric beater) Add lemon juice, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Combine 1 tbsp of the sugar with cornstarch; set aside. Beat in remaining sugar 1 tbsp at a time, then cornstarch mixture. Beat until stiff and glossy, about 2 minutes. Pour filling into pie shell. Spread merigue over hot filling right to the edge of the crust; swirl into peaks. Bake in 325 degree oven for 15 minutes or until lightly brown. Let cool for at least 2 hours for a clean slice.
Smile and Enjoy!
Wasn’t that easy?
And before I close, in memory of mom today, I wanted to share a video link to Jimmy Durante singing, “Smile.” I love you mom!
If we can do nothing else, let us smile.
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
A few nights ago, I was packing up care packages for each of our older children, who are all living in Victoria, on Vancouver Island. Our two sons, Mitchell and Harrison, are at University and our oldest daughter, Alyssa, is working as a teacher and a writer.
I miss them.
I miss them terribly.
My heart is thrumming a longing beat, sitting outside the tight drum of my chest. I wonder if people I meet sense the deep ache inside of me? I’ve been really good ever since saying goodbye to them after Christmas, after all I stay busy with our five children still at home. But our family has always celebrated Valentine’s day in a special way and I miss knowing they won’t find chocolate outside of their bedroom door tomorrow.
So I pack up small boxes loaded with treats uniquely chosen for each of them. Things, even if they had extra money, they would not purchase. Chocolate for sure, and other small treasures. I know it’s not environmentally the best choice. My husband tells me he will send them a bit of money and each of them can pick up a treat but I know they won’t. I know that each of them lives close to their pocket book and the extra money will just go into paying their bills or buying their necessities.
As I place each item in the box, I add a note and share a back story on the things selected. It’s going to cost a small fortune in shipping. But I am visualizing their smiles as they open their box and the joy in their eyes, as they discover treats chosen just for them. Thinking about their heart filling up, takes the ache out of mine.
I think a person loves better after experiencing loss. I’ve lost many people in my life. My dad as a young child, my grandparents, friends, aunts, uncles, pets. I’ve lost babies too. And six years ago, at the end of this month, I lost my mom.
Losing those you love is not an easy experience. The grief can be overwhelming and can take you to the darkest places in your life. By the time, my mom passed away though, I had come to the belief that we are souls first, living an earthly existence. Having that belief makes it easier for me to say goodbye for I know she only left her body, but her spirit didn’t leave me. I can still feel the vibration of her love around me and that is something I want to share with our children.
Especially the ones who won’t be with me this Valentine’s day. I want to put a little love into their heart.
I hope it bubbles up and spills from their hearts and flows into all the people in their life and continues to spread throughout the world. And by the end of the day, the whole world is harmonizing with that humming feeling of love.
We will all being humming with, “Bhava” which is the sanskrit word for love as a process or as a feeling or state of being.
This past weekend was extra long because of our Provincial family day. The kids worked on making homemade Valentine’s day cards…notice the girl’s smiles…they are starting to lose teeth!
Most people do way more than we do at Valentine’s but here the kids are making cards and putting a sucker in each card. Between them they made 66 cards. In their teacher’s card they tapped a red ball point pen.
A happy family day celebration! We are sending love to all our family and friends on Valentine’s day!
If you’re not interested in listening to some of my thoughts, and just want to make some great banana muffins, then scroll down and I’ll meet you at the bottom of this page.
If you ARE interested in hearing my reasons for NOT home-schooling, then continue on.
Warning though, it’s a bit of a novella. You may want to get a big cup of tea.
Let’s chat.
If you’re in this parenting gig too, you may be able to relate to some of my thoughts on the topic. If you are trying to decide how you want to educate your children, this post may give you a glimpse into what has worked for us, is continuing to work for us, and why we chose to make the choices we did/do.
What prompted this whole post, was partly my last post in January. It feels so long ago now. I shared feelings of floundering, ever since our twins started grade one last fall. After almost twenty eight years of raising children, having the house empty was a first for me.
I’m afraid I’m not one of those parents that sings, “hallelujah,” when kids go back to school after the summer break.And on the last day of school in June, I’m one of the first parents to be standing outside the school, arms wide open, a big smile on my face, gleefully welcoming summer AND our children back home for two glorious months.
I’m waving at my dearest friend Tamara, who has stood next to me waiting for her kids too.
Choosing to send them to school is hard for me.
Every day.
This morning, when I went into William’s still dark bedroom at 7 am to rub his back and whisper, good morning, he told me that he hadn’t slept well last night. “Oh really,” I said containing my excitement. “Do you think, maybe, ….you need to stay home?” I asked, silently hoping he would agree. “No, I want to go,” he said, with a stretch and a yawn. “We are making some stuff for ground hog day.”
~Sigh~
“Okay, cool,” I said, feeling a bit deflated.
Then later, as the kids sat around the island, eating their fruit and oatmeal and I was warming up some baked beans for their lunch thermoses, Will said something totally out of the blue. “Mom, if you knew this was the last day that you had on earth, what would you do?”
WOW!
Where did that come from?
But looking at my son, his blonde curls messy from sleep, wearing his, “Happy New Year” pj’s with a dog blowing a horn on the front, I’m not surprised. He lives in a state of light and often asks deep questions. I looked into his questioning blue eyes and told him,
“If this was the last day I had on earth, I would want to spend it with my kids.”
That must have touched him, he got up, reached his arms around my neck and pulled me in close for one of his smacky kisses.
Oh YEAH!
I don’t like sending them to school.
I would rather spend every day of their childhood with them.
Right now, as we move forward raising our last four children, I’m reevaluating my life. I’m trying to figure out who I am at this stage in my life and decide how I want to spend my spare time when our children are at school. Part of me wants to return to work full time. After all, the kids are gone for almost seven hours every day, five days a week. I can only clean the house so much; and I’ve discovered that in this tale end of my life, scrubbing floors and dusting is not how I want to spend my time. But as I type this post, I realize that educating our children isn’t just about sending them off to school each day.
It’s about being there when they get home and continuing the learning….in all ways.
Another reason this subject came up, is that recently one of my favourite vlogging families uploaded a video that spurred my thoughts on the matter. Like a dog that needs a walk, my thoughts have been mulling around my brain, words trailing like a leash, anxious to be picked up and allowed to run.
PLUS, this blog isn’t just about becoming more sustainable, being environmentally aware, and earth friendly. It’s evolving into a place where I can submerge my thoughts to a deeper degree and plunge into the ground, reflecting on how, a mom like me can really help our planet. A light bulb recently exploded and the notion of educating our children is where it’s at. After all they are the next guardians on earth. Also, I like the idea of connecting with other moms.
Moms like me.
Darci Isabella, is such a mom.
She has a large family; like me. She grows her own food; like me. She juices and eats healthy; like me. She has chickens; like me. She is on a minimalist path; like me, She has a soulfull faith that guides her; like me. And she home-schools her children.
Not like me.
She is also, much funnier than me!!!
And can use power tools!
She recently uploaded a video titled, “Developing Positive Self Esteem,” but the seeds of this vlog, deal with her choice to home-school her children. As I watched it, I started thinking about why we chose NOT TO home-school. If you want to have a peak at the video, click on the hyper link….or click below.
Isn’t she the greatest!!!! I really love watching her videos. They are fun, upbeat, and EDUCATIONAL. Also, her children are lovely in every sense of the word and she shares them generously with the world.
Before I go further into my post, I have to say that I don’t want this to be a debate about home-schooling versus public education. Not at all. Each has it’s merits. Each family is unique, as are their children and their learning needs. Also, I realize that we all have different ideas and goals for our children. For instance, my mom just wanted her four daughters to just graduate from high school, since she had been unable to do so. Our over all goal, is to keep enough doors open, so our children can decide which one to enter when they become young adults. The big is that they be happy, well, and peaceful.
So our answers to the question…….
Are we going to home-school?
Are we going to use public school?
Are we going to use a private school?
will be different for each of us.
IT’S ALL GOOD!
In Darci’s case she shares a rather humiliating experience that happened to her as a teenager in public school. What made this event worse, was she felt that she didn’t have an adult to confide in.Then, she shared another experience when her first daughter was bullied in preschool and the teacher didn’t react in a proactive manner. How unfortunate. I’m sure, she had other reasons and experiences too but after that last one, she said she decided to home-school her daughter and her subsequent children. It worked for her.
And is continuing to work for her, as she has older children and younger ones; like me.
Watching her video, got me thinking about how our own life events/experiences influence us and how we choose the various paths we take in life. For instance, my father was killed in a truck accident when I was five years old. I’m terrified when my husband has to travel by vehicle on business. But I let go and trust. When our older children got to driving age, my instinct was to sell our vehicles (my mom did that when I turned 16) and prevent them from driving.
But again, I let go and trusted.
Do I like letting go?
No!
Was it scary?
Yes, absolutely!
But it’s part of this parenting gig.
I wasn’t going to let my fears dictate which path our children would take. Although if you were to ask our children, there have been several times where I have been overly protective with regards to them driving with other parents, other teens, etc and that fear raised it’s ugly head. Hey, we can’t be perfectly brave all the time.
Trusting and letting go starts the moment our babies are born and continues as our children learn to walk, talk, and head in the direction of an independent life away from us.
Isn’t that what we want for them?….an independent life?
But hey….before our kids took off driving, we made sure they had professional driving instructors prepare them for the road ahead.
And in a way, that’s why we are choosing NOT to home-school. We feel that public school provides them with the experts in every field of study, who will teach them everything they need so they don’t crash in life.
Just like Darci, our oldest daughter had a lot to do with the education choices we made. Alyssa, arrived in March 1990, and was born with a congenital brain abnormality. She had an agenesis of the corpus callosum. When we were released from the high risk maternity hospital in Vancouver, where she was born a month early, our pediatric neuro-surgeon, told us there were no studies with regards to our daughter’s potential. He planned to follow her case and see her in the first year, but the last words he said to me on discharge were:
“take her home and treat her like normal.”
WHAT?
I’ve written about this experience in another post, so I won’t go into detail, but you can imagine, with that diagnoses hanging over our heads, the last thing we did was take her home and treat her like we hadn’t heard…missing corpus callosum.
Hence, my foray into the world of science and all it knew AT THE TIME, regarding stimulating brains.
AND this was BEFORE internet!
In every way Alyssa developed beautifully as a baby, but not having children before meant we didn’t know what was normal development. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Alyssa often calls herself the”experimental child,” but isn’t every first child that? In our case, not only were we ignorant regarding normal baby/child development, we didn’t have a clue what to expect from our child. It was a whole new world for us, and scary at times.
We, therefore decided to try a bit of everything to stimulate her brain and expose her to all sorts of learning situations. We will never know for sure but I believe all the years of swimming, piano, and Irish Dancing, played a large role in rewiring her brain. All that movement between the right and left hands/arms and feet stimulated the right and left part of her brain.
Alyssa the summer before Kindergarten when she was five. She was developing normally in every way
By the time Alyssa was ready for kindergarten, she had been exposed to a multitude of activities and experiences. At times, I felt like we were overwhelming her. She was a gentle and peaceful little girl, who quietly went along with our game plan. From early on, I knew some of her favourite moments were when we curled up together in bed at night, reading about fairies and make believe lands.
Alyssa on her first day of kindergarten in Sept 1995
We thought the sun rose and set on her and she was brilliant. But that diagnoses, lingered above us always. To us, every decision we made was generated from a place of moving her forward and helping her to reach her full potential.
If I had been a trained teacher, I may have contemplated keeping her at home but I knew others, some with masters in their fields, were waiting at the school and ready to teach her. How could I not provide the best education for her in every area of study. Also, the area where we lived (we are still here) had/has an excellent elementary and high school, with high academic success. Keep in mind too, this was twenty two years ago, home schooling wasn’t as big as it is now.
So with the decision made, we said goodbye, let go and trusted and she entered public school.
Alyssa waiting for the school bus with her little brother Clark. It’s not always easy going to school!
And she didn’t look back.
She THRIVED!
In kindergarten she met her best friend. Even though those girls have moved to different parts of the world, they remain BEST friends to this day. I often think, had I not put her in school, she would have missed out on having Brianna in her life.
Sadly, Brianna and her family moved to Mexico when they were in grade 5 but they kept in touch over the years and in the summers when her parents would return for a visit, the girls picked up exactly where they left off. Two years ago, Brianna married and Alyssa was her maid of honour. Soon she will have her first baby and I know who will be a special Auntie to this wee one.
Sometimes our friends, especially our girl friends, are as close as a sister would be and for years, Alyssa only had brothers so her friends were really important to her.
From left to right…Brianna, Alyssa, Ameila, and Maureen….Alyssa needed her girl friends with no sisters for many years…now she has three sisters although they are way younger than her
And by the time her little brother Clark was ready to start school, we were convinced school was working well for our family so we registered him too for public school. Alyssa set the tone. Clark was bright lad, an early reader, curious about everything, and educators recognized this quickly. He was placed in the high potential learning program early on, where further stimuli was provided to challenge him.
We did not however leave the education solely in our school’s hands. We feel that they can provide a well rounded base for our children but we wanted them to be further stimulated.
When Alyssa, and her subsequent siblings came home from school, and it’s something we still do today with our youngest children; we have a snack, we chat about our day and then the children go and spend about another hour to an hour and a half, working on their music, their math and any homework they have from school.
If you want to see how Canada’s education ranks in the world, check out this National Post article which ranks Canada number 7 . Great! but in the area of math, we still need to work harder….or smarter.
Here are a few tools I use daily to have our children practice their math skills.
We use the IXL math site, and the Xtramath program to stay on top of their basic math skills.
Also, if we are going to be out after school and there may be any waiting time between activities, I make sure to provide age appropriate material. I often print off a few of these math sheets which the children whip off quickly from the K5 learning site.
I know, I know, you would think they would learn enough math during the day but they don’t. Even though math is everywhere from telling time first thing in the morning, to baking with mom, to estimating how much snow fell overnight, it’s something we need to keep working on. Practice, practice, practice, is what I have found in creating success in math for our children.
After dinner, it’s bath and then we enjoy reading with our children, one on one and then we read in group settings. The little kids and I just finished reading, “Little House on the Prairie,” and now I’m reading, “Little Women,” to the twins. David and William cuddle together and are currently enjoying reading the “Harry Potter,” books.
Grace followed in her siblings footsteps by loving books….Alyssa used to say, “she’s a genius!” of her baby sister
In the summer we always have a family book on the go. I remember reading “Lord of the Flies,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird,” with our elementary age children and was happily surprised to realize they understood the underlining meaning of each book. You can never underestimate children’s ability to discern complex issues. Sometimes they get it easier than we do as adults. We complicate things and our judgments get in the way.
Clark far left with his battle of the books team…he should be smiling BIG…’cause they were the district champs, Alyssa also participated in the Battle of the Books competition and her team won for the district two consecutive years
So yeah, math and reading, ARE huge in our house.
The other decision we made early on was to ask our children to pick one physical, and one fine art activity, outside of their school hours. Although they often did more than that, as they were passionate about several things and didn’t want to give anything up. For instance, Mitchell loved cello and guitar so he had lessons in both, as well as being involved in a guitar group and the music school’s string orchestra. As if this wasn’t enough, he was also on the rep soccer team. This wasn’t uncommon for any of our children. They all learned to balance and time manage from an early age and several of them have told me that learning to do well in school, while juggling extra curricular activities, conditioned them to be able to take on a full course load at University, as well as working part time. Alyssa worked on her ARCT in piano while doing a full course load at University.
Alyssa is all smiles after a piano festival…here is a certificate for first class honours
Alyssa danced all through her childhood starting with ballet, tap and then she Irish Danced for eight years. I will miss watching her ringlets bounce to the an Irish Reel.
Above she is with a few of her Irish dancing group at a community event
Alyssa on piano, Clark on violin and Mitchell on cello…later Harrison would join them as the second violinist in a few years…here they are playing at a school event. The song was “peaceful day”….but practicing this piece had been nothing but…still good memories!!!
Over the years the kids were in various skiing programs but I think they still loved skiing together the best…except the year Alyssa hit and tree with her head and had to be taken off the mountain in an ambulance!
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If you are wondering how we as parents juggled it all, financially anyway, we had the mind set that there was no do over. Our thought was that our children would have one childhood only to explore their interests and passions and figure out what they loved, and we would have to be creative paying for it all. It’s interesting how when you commit to something, all sorts of material assistance comes your way. I also became a master at time management and organization. Some years, we were literally flying from activity to activity and we made a lot of financial sacrifices. It wasn’t easy living on one income and yes, there was stress some days but when we reevaluated with our children at the beginning of each school year what their goals are, those were the choices we made.
Mitchell juggled playing cello and guitar, and all sorts of sports. Above he’s holding an award from a cello festival and below, he’s trying out a new guitar…I miss hearing him play both
Achieving success in these areas, built self confidence and strong positive self esteem, for all of us.
An unexpected bonus to these extra activities were that our children developed deep and lasting relationships with some of their teachers and coaches. These were valuable mentors in our children’s lives. Life lessons were taught every day. For instance, when our oldest daughter was preparing for a piano festival one spring and starting to get really nervous about it, her teacher said these words,
“Alyssa, you have worked hard on these pieces and you are ready to perform them. What you need to do now is just relax and let the music out.”
We have been fortunate.
Grace graduating from preschool above. YES, I did think this was a bit much but it’s something they do at this preschool. She will graduate next from high school in 2021.
I understand why some parents choose to home-school their children so they can protect them from what could be perceived as negative experiences, such as bullying or peer pressure. Maybe they would prefer their children also aren’t exposed to ideas and concepts being taught that they may not agree with. But at some point we need to let go don’t we? At some point we need to let our children figure out how to manage in the world and also decide what ideas resonate within.
I believe it’s these moments in life, these negative, not feel great at the time moments, that teach our children the most. I WANT them to experience these too. How else are our children going to learn to cope in the world? These moments provide a rich opportunity for them to think about how they are feeling, make choices on how they will react, and how they are going to solve the problem, whether it be a bullying situation, or a social issue as a teen, or learning to advocate for themselves with a teacher.
We experienced that last one with our son Mitchell when he was 10 and 11. He had a grade 5 teacher who had a notorious reputation for being a strict, control hungry bully. We would have preferred that he be placed in a different class but our thought process at the beginning of the year was, “well, in life we have to learn to get along with all sorts of people.” It certainly was a year of growth and it had an ending that was unexpected.
Mitchell had good self esteem going into grade five and he was a straight A student. His teacher told him that he didn’t give anyone straight A’s out of principal, no matter how hard they worked…and Mitchell worked hard. His teacher was unfair, not respectful of the children and ranted on for what felt like hours to Mitchell about insignificant issues. He wanted to get on with learning.
One day Mitchell had enough when his teacher again was harshly critical of a classmate and he finally spoke up. The teacher was shocked that anyone would challenge him and a power struggle ensued. Mr. P fired back using intimidation and threats, but Mitchell kept calling him on his negative actions pointing out inequity. It was a rough time and at one point Mitchell came home telling me he had had enough. He wanted to be home-schooled. Believe me, I thought about it but in the end I’m glad that we encouraged him to hang in there.
We tried to talk to the teacher but he just denied his actions and blamed it all on an unruly class. Not getting anywhere with Mr. P. we had no choice but to take our concerns to the Principal, who I’m sure was aware of the nature of this teacher. Although this teacher had been at our school for years, he did not return the following fall and we never heard officially if our complaint prompted his removal. Many parents thanked us for stepping forward but it was really Mitchell.
Our sweet boy was always quick to recognize inequity and stand up for what was right
The point of all of this is our son learned a valuable lesson from a difficult public school situation. He learned that he could stand up and speak his truth. He also demonstrated to his classmates how you can do so respectfully and in the end make a difference.
Would I have liked for Mitchell to have had a better teacher that year.
YES!
BUT it taught me an important lesson too. That negative situations teach us more than we think and we shouldn’t be fearful of them. I have a rock that Mitchell painted that year that has the words, “respect,” “kindness,” and “hope,” on them. It a door stop in the summer time and as I whoosh in and out with my kids in my glory months, I’m reminded about a little boy’s courage and perseverance for justice.
If he hadn’t gone to school, he wouldn’t have had that in his education pocketbook.
Who knows when he will cash in on that experience.
As I write this post now, our first string, as our basketball loving son, Harrison, likes to call our first four kids, are out the door. They have now graduated and have moved off to University and beyond.
Grace, William, Kathryn, and Victoria are still on the court.
Our oldest daughter, Alyssa, graduated in 2008. She now has a bachelor’s degree in English and in Education. She was our first teacher and taught us how to be parents. She is now a qualified teacher, world traveler, writer, photographer, pianist, and so much more. She’s brilliant! (you are my sunshine and daddy’s sweet feet)
Our oldest son, Clark, graduated in 2011. He now has a Bachelor of Science Degree and plans to attend law school in the fall. Clark was given my surname, which means, “scholar,”which I find interesting as he is always on the quest towards learning. As a little blonde headed lad, he picked up every stick, rock, and bug for observation. He now teaches at our local Science Centre and encourages kids to ask hard questions and find the answers. (he was my little monkey..always curious)
Mitchell, graduated in 2014 and will obtain his Bachelor’s of Science Degree, majoring in Psychology, later this spring. Mitchell has always been a happy, looking for fun kid; wanting to try out everything. He’s also been the kids who has gone to the emergency room more than any of our other kids from all his sport related injuries. When he was little he had a commanding presence, and moved through his life knowing exactly what he wanted. When he was three years old and I was telling him to do something, he looked up at me and said, “you aren’t the boss of me.” Thank you for teaching me that I was only a caretaker of your body, until you could head out into the world on your own. You also taught us a lot about “respect, kindness and hope.” (you will always be my “bear”)
And that brings me to the end of our first string. Harrison, who won the most sportsmanlike award in basketball in grade 12. He learned a lot about being a good sport being the middle of our pack of kids. As a young child he always wanted us to play board games with us but would cry desperately if he lost. In high school though he learned a lot about the value of winning and losing during his years playing on the high school basket ball team. Our kid’s high school is well known for their strong academics but let’s just say, if you develop character more when you lose, then Harrison and all his basketball teammates are abundant in character, for they lost just about every game they played….okay, maybe not every game but it sure felt like it at times. Harrison graduated in 2017 and is currently attending his first year of Science at University, heavy to the business courses since he plans to claim that as his major in year three. One other thing I want to tell you about Harrison is that a few years ago, we got a new cherry red “LG” washing machine that played a jaunty tune when the cycle ended. When I would ask Harrison how his day went at school he would say, “LG Mom!” which translated meant, “life’s good!” Yes l’lil Piggie, life is good with you in it.
Before I close, I did want to say that our parenting started with a strong foundation and the belief that one parent should stay home. Also, we adopted an attachment- parent type of lifestyle, ie: breastfeeding, allowing self weaning, co-sleeping, wearing our babies, keeping them close and listening to their cues.
William in a rare moment where he wasn’t attached to me in his sling. The words above his head couldn’t be more true. “To our children we give two things, one is roots, the other is wings”
We found that by the time our children were ready for preschool/kindergarten, they had a good sense of trust and confidence and were ready and happy to head off to school. It’s our belief that when you provide a strong base for kids and maintain it throughout their childhood, it gives them the trust and confidence to explore their world.
Now I have to say that when William was about to start school, four years ago,I did revisit the idea of home-schooling. Interestingly enough, it was my fear that prevented me from doing so. Public school had worked for all our other children and I didn’t know if I could provide him with everything that he needed to be ready for life. He was intensely curious and extremely social and we felt that keeping him at home would limit him. I admire the families who do choose to home-school, because they are brave and in a way they are taking the roadless traveled, which I have always admired. I know that this can inspire the next generation of children to forge new avenues in life. Times are changing and this world needs the next generation to be free thinking and open to new ideas and ways of working in the world.
My final thought on the matter is:
Whatever choice we make for our children, as long as it comes from a place of love, it is the right one. ~Lee Reynolds~
I’d like to dedicate the following YouTube video, called, “Light~Sleeping at Last,” to my eight beautiful kids.
“I’ll will always hold you close, but I will learn to let you go.”
And now, as if this blog wasn’t full enough, I want to share my banana muffin recipe with you, which in my opinion, is the perfect snack to go along with a fruit smoothie when the kids come home from school.
The children took some of their muffins to share (more on the side) to their violin group class last Monday
Here are Will, Kate and Tori trying out my Banana muffins and a fruit smoothie which are a perfect after school snack
Hope’s Banana Muffins
Ingredients
3 large mashed, (ripe) bananas 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 slightly beaten eggs 1/3 cup coconut oil or margarine…melted 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 cup flour 1/2 cup oatmeal 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
(Topping: walnuts, coconut and brown sugar)
In a large bowl, mash bananas. Add the sugar and beaten egg. Add the melted coconut or margarine. Mix well
Set aside. In a medium bowl, add all the dry ingredients and mix them well. Now add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir until only just combined….do not over mix.
Spray muffin tins and fill with mixture, 3/4 to the top.
Top with a sprinkling of walnuts, coconut and brown sugar
Place in preheated oven at 375 degree for 15 to 20 minutes. I like mine only until the toothpick comes out clean…the aroma in the kitchen as they are cooking is delectable!!!
Enjoy.
Thank you for coming to visit today.
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
What does the wisdom of Gandalf, blessing today and carrot muffins have in common? Well hang in there and I will try to tie them all together. I’m sorry that I haven’t been writing more on my blog. I have been rather depressed since Christmas. Ever since everyone went back to their own lives full of wonderful experiences and interesting activities. I’ve also been sad over the state of our world.
On a personal note:
Our oldest daughter, Alyssa, (also a passionate LOTR fan…for those of you who are not, that stands for the “Lord of the Rings” which are books written by J. R.R. Tolkien) is back living and working in Victoria as a teacher and a writer. (Check out her latest post on her blog, A.R. Reynolds)
Our oldest son, Clark is working at our local Science Center and patiently waiting for law schools to knock on our door. Fingers crossed that he will be returning to school in the fall; not that I’m in any hurry for him to leave home but I know the next chapter of his life is beckoning.
Our son Mitchell, who just turned twenty two yesterday, (Happy Birthday dearest son) is in his last year of Science at the University of Victoria, and later this Spring he will graduate with his bachelor’s degree. Who knows where he will go with his Science/Psychology degree but there is a need for mental health professionals in Canada ( in the world really) right now, so I’m sure he will find this an exciting and flourishing field to continue to study, or work in.
Our third son, Harrison, who just turned 19 before Christmas, is in his first year of University and he seems to be handling a full course load of Science/business courses. I never hear from him so I know he’s staying busy with school. When I run into his friends, some who have remained in our little town to attend our local University, they tell me that from the snap chats he sends out, “he’s having a very good time away from home!”
Hmmmm…..a mom letting go moment here. I’m happy you are enjoying University life Harry.
Grace, who just turned 15, is probably the busiest of us all. While maintaining straight A’s in school, she is also working on her grade 9 piano, her grade 7 voice, she has a voice festival coming up, sings in the school choir, and plays on the school basketball team. The later came TOTALLY out of left field, when she told us back in November, that she was going to try out for the junior girl’s team. (never having played before!!!) Shockingly, she is following in her older brother Harrison’s footsteps with adept ability. During their last tournament she won, “most valuable player,”and was given a t-shirt/Gatorade as a prize. She strongly played her post position, made several baskets, including two back to back free throws and assisted numerous times. Who knew? (Goes to show we all have unknown talents and gifts)
Our son William who is eight, is no couch potato either. He plays cello, and is involved in the group string orchestra at our local music school. He is also swimming in our local swim clubs “grassroots program.” Last night he came home smiling and waving an upcoming swim meet registration form. He also enjoys being a part of the chess club at school.
Finally there are our twin daughters, Kathryn and Victoria. For six year olds, they are busy in their own right, learning to play piano and violin. Next week they have been invited to join the beginner violin group at our music school.Although we didn’t register them for another round of swimming and skating lessons, which they were doing all fall, (me smiling as that was a bit much) we have been getting them out to skate at our new and improved outdoor skating rink. I think they like it even better than lessons as they can free skate, doing whatever they want while racing their Dad and older brother Will. (Next time I’m joining them)
Kathryn
Victoria
Then there is my husband David, who doesn’t share much about his work except to say, “more projects have been pouring in,” with a grin on his face. I guess that is why he heads out the door to get to the office for 7 am each morning
David, truly my better half
So you see, everyone is busy with their own lives.
Then there is me.
I’ve kind of been floundering since the twins started grade one last September. I think I understand one aspect towards parents who choose home-schooling. It’s really a delight keeping them close and watching them learn and grow. I truly admire these families.I’ve been asked a few times lately if I home-school our children and I think I will write about our education choices in a future post and perhaps give you some links to tools and resources we use to support our children’s learning but for now suffice it to say—-
AFTER I waved goodbye to the little ones, who took the bus this morning, I decided that I HAD to break the monotony of my daily routine.
As you can see from the distant hillsides, we still have tons of snow
OR I was going to go crazy!!!
INSTEAD of coming in and cleaning up the kitchen, which was a MESS from a whirlwind morning of cooking oatmeal, making a fruit smoothie, and making lunches, (yes I should have made them last night), picking up bathroom towels and pj’s off the floor, throwing my first load of laundry in for the day, unloading last nights dishes from the dishwasher, gathering up garbage from everyone’s bedroom, and making beds; that is just a snippet glimpse into my morning routine,
I chose to feed the cat, not really a choice since he was loudly meowing that he was hungry, AND I took the chickens their breakfasts. (those chickens eat better than most people in the world, just saying) After that, I disregarded the mess and made a BIG cup of black tea, with a splash of vanilla unsweetened almond milk, took a bowl of leftover oatmeal, and headed back to bed.
I never do this!!!
Take the gentle path. ~ George Herbert~
Nope!
That has not been my path………
My oldest sister B often says to me, “be gentle on yourself.” I don’t know if she meant for me to crawl back into bed after the kids left for school but I know when she says this, she means she wants me to take life easier.
That is not in my DNA!
For some reason, the mantra I hear lingering years after my Dad died, when I was five years old is:
“Work hard!”
But…..
I think there is great wisdom in my oldest sister’s words. Thanks B! I wished I listened to them more.
But today, I’m all ears.
I am here, laptop in hand, sipping comforting tea, eating oatmeal loaded with nuts, seeds and fruit, and cuddled under my cozy comforter. Ryuuki, our Siamese cat is doing his front paw kneading routine, getting ready to curl up for a good sleep. He looks at me with his big blue eyes and says, “it’s about time you joined me in the good life.”
Ryuuki is a good teacher how to live life gently.
We should all listen to our big sisters, and our pets.
With their hateful words and actions, they draw us closer towards midnight on the doomsday clock. Thanks to these two leaders, (can they be called that???”) a panel of scientists and scholars said just yesterday that the world is as close as it has ever been to a so-called doomsday scenario. A nuclear war which will end life as we know it on earth. For some reason, I think about the Lord of the Rings trilogy set in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, when I read or hear any news about Trump and the Korean Dictator. At times, it’s so bizarre that it feels like a fictional nightmare. But this is really happening on our earth right now.
I try to look away but then my crystal ball shows me an image of my children. Small and sweet like the hobbits in the LOTR’s. William’s laughter is light and tinkling and his eyes shine with joy, and the little girls respond with giggles of mirth. Their images replace Trump and Kim Jong-un and the doomsday clock. I can see our children playing music together and hear the harmony flowing out of the ball and into the world.
Clark playing violin with his little sisters, Kate on the left and Tori on the right
And I wonder, how can a depressed, middle age mom, help to change the world, when I don’t even have the energy to clean the house today. How can I shift the darkness that hovers over my heart, over our planet, and threatens to invade my home? As I asked these questions of myself, I thought of the words of Gandalf.
“It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
And that is where my small acts of kindness and love come in….and I start to tie in the whole blessing aspect of my post.
“Bless a thing and it will bless you. Curse it and it will curse you…if you bless a situation,it has no power to hurt you, and even if it is troublesome for a time, it will gradually fade out, if you sincerely bless it.” ~Emmet Fox~
Blessing the circumstances we are living with in the world, is our pathway to changing it. Accepting the situation and WHAT IS, doesn’t mean we are complacent towards it. No! But it is the first step in the path towards moving forward and changing our circumstance.
In my own personal life, things are changing. My children are growing up and moving out into the world. They don’t need me quite as much. That’s a good thing. That means David and I are raising strong independent people. This is a blessing. Lately, I’ve been thinking about getting back into the work force but when I think about trying to balance everything again; work and home life, I cringe.
Is that the right path for me”
After seeing two career opportunities that interested me recently, both of which I’m qualified for, I shared my thoughts with my husband. He looked at me for a long time, contemplating my words and my desire to move down a new path but after what felt like a long time, he said,
“You underestimate your value in our home.”
Huh?
He further went on to say that everything I did at home, enabled everyone else to accomplish great things.
Wow!
I do that!
Really?
As I was in the kitchen pouring a second cup of steaming tea just now, I dropped the job ads in the recycling bin. I must admit January is a slow month. I need more sunshine. Also, I know my garden will be calling to me in a short while. I have great plans for expanding our vegetable garden. Adding a few more chickens to our flock and maybe planting a mini grape vineyard. Once spring comes, David and I will be working on our second rock wall above the pool and getting it planted. In the meantime, we have to finish the attic renovation before Harrison returns in late April. And then there is always the opportunity to work at my gardening gig from late April to mid June. My boss did invite me back at the end of last season.
There is a lot to bless today.
I sit up a bit straighter in bed, that dark ball slips further from my fingertips. And yet, that heaviness holds on like a tight strap around my heart, squeezing any happiness I may feel.
I know I’m not the only one feeling this way.
Judging from all the protest marches occurring in the States, and various places around the world, I’m not alone in wanting positive change in the world.
But what can I do about it?
So many questions….
And then something I heard recently on the CBC radio hits me. I wish I could remember the name of the guest speaker, but I was driving at the time and I couldn’t write his name down. He was a spiritual teacher who said, there is power in sending a different message out into the world. One most people wouldn’t think of but has tremendous power.
Loving kindness
Hmmmm.
During that CBC radio segment, seeds were planted in my heart and I know that by taking the time to be gentle on myself today, it loosened the straps of darkness holding me hostage. Although, I’m personally not in a place to send loving kindness to men who move through the world as ego, power hungry lunatics, I AM willing to send them a blessing.
A blessing of kindness.
If I really want to be about helping our planet earth, then it starts from a place of accepting these men are in power, understanding that we are on the brink of a pending apocalyptic event, and fear and hatred is not an effective emotion right now. These feelings never solved anything.
Blessing others and sending loving kindness is the answer. And if enough of us take a moment to bless our earth and all that is happening within it, and especially those who vex us, I know this is the key to the positive change I want to see in the world.
Who knew that the most effective form of protest was a blessing.
This is where I need to be right now.
My family needs me at home…even if I am in bed writing this morning.
Maybe it’s the way out of my depression too.
There is GREAT wisdom in choosing to take a gentle path in life. Maybe more of us need to cuddle up in bed with our cat or puppy by our side, sipping hot comforting tea. I’m blessed to have this option. But most of us can incorporate some kindness towards ourselves into our day.
No matter what path we are on, we need to take gentle steps. Steps that aren’t fraught with rocks, easing ourselves towards more joy, more kindness, and definitely more love.
Bless today!
And what does all of this have to do with Carrot muffins you may ask. When we bless our day and those in it, we bless what is. We accept our circumstances and in doing so there is a exhale of surrender. We let go. And with that letting go moment, trust whooshes in. You know that saying that the Universe can’t abide a void. When we let go, trust flows into our life and goodness follows it.
And like the law of attraction, when we live in a state of goodness, we attract more of it into our lives.
Goodness comes!
And THAT is where the carrot muffins come in.
My Goodness!
Because after a morning of writing, sipping tea, and generally, being kind to me, I filled my cup up. I’m able to give back. I’m able to send blessings out to the world and particularly to two men that I feel need a whopping bowlful of it for how they have been behaving. And for my family, well, when my kids come home from school this afternoon, they are going to smell warm spices wafting out of our kitchen and find a large red plate loaded with carrot muffins waiting JUST for them.
Yes, as Mother Teresa said, “I can do no great things, only small things with great love.” And so today, I can write about being sad, about blessing my situation, about blessing those who vex us, and about moving in the direction towards change with an expectation for only goodness.When we send love out, we are really loving ourselves.
Because if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times; “We ARE, all connected!”
Please join me in a sec in my kitchen and we can make some muffins. I need to get up now, bath and get my house whipped into shape. Gee, who knew I would have so much energy after a morning in bed! While we bake let’s listen to the following YouTube video. As I was writing this post and talking about the spiritual leader I heard on CBC earlier this month, I remembered an email I got from my sister C. (I know, I’m blessed to have THREE wise and gorgeous sisters) Anyway, I guess the Universe REALLY wanted me to get this message. The link to the YouTube video she sent is a guided loving meditation from Ajahn Sona, who I met many years ago during a weekend retreat at the Birken Monastery.
No matter what your beliefs or faith, when you come from a place of love, there is great healing.
The first time I listened to Ajahn Sona’s video and sang along with him, “All I ask of you is forever to remember me, as loving you,” I cried and cried. Tears just flowed. I was thinking about my mom, my dad, about my sisters and their families. I thought about each of our children and hoped that they ALL know, that if I said nothing else to them in this lifetime, that they hear THESE words, from me. It”s such a healing message. Then as I said these words to my loved ones, I was hearing them say these words back to me.
My sister C, I heard you gently singing them to me. Thank you!!!
And get ready to sing, and cry……if you can’t see the video below, click on the hyper-link.
I know I wove in and out of various topics today in this post, but if you remember nothing more, remember my love for you and my intention to contribute to the world in a loving way. As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you are unable to comment directly on this blog, you can always send me a message on my Facebook page.
Love is where it’s at people~the rest is just filler.
And speaking of filler…..here is my carrot muffin recipe.Let’s bake!
Hope’s Homestead Carrot Muffins
Ingredients
2 eggs
1 cup of carrot/apple pulp (when I made my juice yesterday I saved the pulp but if you don’t have any pulp from left over juicing use 1 cup of applesauce instead)
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 vegetable oil
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup vanilla unsweetened almond milk
2 cups flour (I like to use 1 cup whole wheat/1 cup white flour…using just wheat makes it heavy)
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups of grated carrots
Topping Ingredients
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 allspice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
In a medium bowl mix the 2 eggs, 1 cup of carrot/apple pulp and/or 1/2 cup applesauce, 1/2 cup oil, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup almond milk and 2 cups of grated carrots.
In a large bowl mix the 2 cups of flour, the 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of white sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt and the spices. (1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp allspice)
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients but only until just combined. Over mixing will create a heavy muffin….and we want light muffins with nice texture
Place into greased muffin tins…..I fill to the top as I like big muffins. This recipe makes 18 nice size muffins.
Sprinkle the topping, sugar, spices and walnuts on top of each muffin.
Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes to 20 minutes…or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool slightly and then turn onto a cookie rack to cool….but only long enough to EAT!
A couple muffins for me to go along with my tea…while I edit this post
And a plate waiting for the kids to come home
As you munch on muffins, I hope you contemplate how you can take a gentle path. And as you move through your day, say your blessings.
Blessed be my blogging family!
Until we meet again, may you be well, peaceful and happy.
“New Year’s Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today, carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change.” ~Sarah Ban Breathnach~
Happy New Year!
It’s taking me a bit of time to get rolling this year. Our holiday celebrations took a toll on me. I thought I was doing amazing. The house was sparkling, (and decluttered!!!) the tree and Christmas decorations were up, most of my baking was done, and all the presents were wrapped and hidden safely away from curious little ones asking questions like, “is Santa real?” and “how does he get through the glass that covers our gas fireplace?”
I was pretty proud of myself. We got this Grand Fir and the huge poinsettia that’s in the living room with points from the Super Store. Little things like that really helped so we could stretch our dollars at Christmas time.
Then on the Thursday before Christmas, during our twin daughter’s violin recital, I started to feel hot and dizzy. That was the beginning. Even though I pushed through the few next days, buying a horde of groceries on Friday and then on Saturday doing all the final things to ready our house for our returning, out of town children, I knew some kind of virus was taken me hostage.
Victoria before the December recital
Kathryn a bit before the recital…the recital when I started to feel ill…..but the concert was GREAT!
And sure enough, as Christmas loomed, a roaring headache took hold, my body was feverish and I started to cough. I had contracted a respiratory flu virus. I think I could even trace the moment it flew into my mouth. The weeks before Christmas, our three youngest took turns being sick and one evening, as I was reading with Victoria, she turned to me and coughed right in my face. In slow motion, I could feel the invisible virus laughing and jeering at me. I think I may have staved off the illness too as my immune system has been really strong but in December I was burning the candle pretty low, and it pushed myself beyond even my limits.
And those limits are far.
I have built a strong endurance muscle over the years. I think a lot of women with large families have this muscle. It’s called, “if you don’t do it, it won’t get done.”
Since I have three Christmas babies, (Clark born on Dec 20th, Harrison born on the 19th, and Grace was born on Dec 5th. She was actually due on the 18th. Can you imagine having children’s birthday’s on the 18th, 19th, and 20th and then doing Christmas!!! Thankfully she arrived a few weeks early. Suffice it to say, I have had a few holiday seasons were I was nursing a newborn, throwing birthday parties, caring for older children, buying and wrapping presents and then stuffing and cooking the turkey; WITHOUT ANY HELP..
Yeah so my limits and ability to get through difficult times are tremendous.
But this year, that virus really took the edge off things.
Being sick while trying to push through teaches valuable lessons. That there are times in life when you have to really listen to your body, slow down and do just what needs doing.And sometimes you have to ask for help.
Hmmmm, imagine that….asking for help.
There is a certain sense of strength that comes after pushing through a tough time and finding yourself on the other side. But being able to ask for help teaches us to be humble enough to realize that we can’t always do it all.
And it’s okay.
Somehow I made it through the holidays. On Dec 23rd, I had to ask my oldest son to cook the rib roast and pull together dinner and he did an amazing job. On Dec 24th, Alyssa and Grace iced the dozens of gingerbread and sugar cookies I had made. Even Will trudged through the deep snow and fed the chickens a few times.
As Alyssa was combing through her books and belongings and deciding what to take back to her new home, she tossed me a book that she had already read.
And while I have not read this book…yet…. I thought it was pretty remarkable that our oldest daughter, who is just in her 20’s, has already contemplated something that I have taken a lifetime to learn. Maybe we do build our own endurance muscles when we do it ourselves. I know Alyssa certainly has since she picked herself up and flew off to London to teach for two years without hardly knowing a soul. She had to move several times, schlepping her suitcases onto buses and trains and got herself all over London on various teaching assignments.
There are times in our life when we push our limits and build our muscles and there are times when we hit a wall and have to ask for help. She learned that when she was over on the other side of the world she could rely on herself but she also knew that having a support system of friends in place was crucial if she needed to ask for her. I remember in one instance, her apartment flooded and she needed to find a place to stay and her friends were there for her.
Anyway, aren’t our children sometimes our BEST teachers?
The holidays glittered in so many ways.
We made wonderful memories. We had a lot of laughs. We had some delicious food and drinks. With our children growing older, I realize that they can help and have strong muscles too. If you never ask, you will never receive and so part of the joy of this holiday was receiving. Our older ones were more than happy to help me and even our younger ones, built a bit of muscle too. We realized that being a family means helping each other, especially when times are tough.
When mom is sick.
William is learning to play chess at school and got a chess set for Christmas….not this one….his new one is in a lovely wooden box and actually has other games included with it.
On Christmas night the kid’s put on a Christmas concert for us. William literally lights our family up with joy….I’m so glad that we pursued having our last four children. It wasn’t easy, and we certainly didn’t have support of our family and friends. Our society also doesn’t value large families and certainly having them later in life is frowned upon. But when you are writing your own story, you need to listen from within and follow your heart. JOY COMES…and in our case, it came in the form of a beautiful boy named Will. And before him we were given a piece of Grace when our daughter Grace Eliabeth arrived in time for Christmas 2002. Then in 2011 we were given a miracle and a reminder that hope is the key when Kathryn Mira and Victoria Hope were born. So Grace, Joy, Miracle and Hope are present each holiday now.
This is our son Harrison’s 1st plate of food on Christmas…..hey, where’s the ambrosia? Each one of the kids were in charge of a certain part of dinner….it was a family affair.
That was the real magic in the air this year….along with my barking cough.
Alyssa took some wonderful pictures with the old Canon camera we gave her many Christmases ago…….and here are just a few of our Christmas memories.
Kathryn and Victoria are 6 this holiday and always have each other’s back. They are the BEST of friends
Grace just turned 15 and has been one busy girl this year. She is working on her grade 9 RCM piano level, working on her grade 7 in voice, sings in the school choir, andt completed her bronze cross in swimming. For some reason she didn’t think she was busy enough so she signed up for Junior girls basketball team. As I type this she is leaving for a tournament out of town.She laughs when she hears about what most teenagers are flipping out about….boys, or social stuff. The typical teenage drama doesn’t faze her. She recently told me that she thinks focusing on her extra curricular activities and getting straight A’s in school is keeping it real.
Alyssa and Grace are almost 13 years apart, like my oldest sister and I, and like B and I, they too are the best of friends. They share many of the same interests. Piano, swimming, and over Christmas they enjoyed just hanging out, baking, icing cookies, and they even spent a bit of time in our Hobbit’s hollow crawl space where they caught up on a few of their fav Netflix shows….”Stranger Things,” being one of them.
Harrison was happy to be home and eat food this Christmas. He says the food at the University is not always the greatest….and he really missed his friends as well and spent a lot of time catching up and, ahem….partying…but hey, he just turned 19 he’s legal to drink now. One of the gifts he got for his birthday before Christmas was a small bar fridge for his residence room. Hopefully now he can get a few healthy snacks to supplement those cafeteria meals.
Mitchell is going to be finishing his Science (Psychology major) degree in a few months. I found it rather funny that considering he works part time at the downtown Victoria, “Serious Coffee,” that he wasn’t sick of the stuff….but over Christmas he could often be found with a mug in his hand. He’s such a cool guy and so fun to be with. He tells the greatest stories too and has a very interesting perspective on life….an old soul for sure!
Our oldest son Clark just turned 25 before Christmas and really enjoyed hanging out with the family and seeing friends over the holidays.He can always be counted on to shovel the drive=way, help out with the little ones and amazingly….he learned to make a wicked rib roast dinner…the BEST I’ve ever tasted and I’m not much of a beef eater.
The little kids love hanging out with their big brother. Clark helps the little girls with their violin, and he sometimes reads in animated voices to William…..I loved hearing him read Harry Potter to him before Christmas. The BEST is when he comes home with treats after a day that he has worked at the Science Centre. The one sad thing about having a large family is often the older kids are out of the door while the little ones are growing up but it’s been nice that Clark could attend University in the Okanagan and continue to share in his little siblings daily life. What a great bond and many memories they have shared together. After Clark’s personal pictures were taken, I asked the kids if they wanted a picture with their big bro and they flew to be at his side with big smiles on their faces.
Alyssa told me that when she returned to Victoria after Christmas, a remarkable thing happened. It felt like she was going home. After years of traveling back and forth to University, and then her two years teaching and adventuring in the U.K. she is happy to settle down and find a cool groove where she can teach and write….and yes travel. Sometimes you have to leave home and experience elsewhere to realize REAL home feels like to you. We are so glad you found your place by the sea Alyse….and now we can visit!!!
Honestly, I felt like death warmed over in this picture but somehow David and I pulled off another Christmas with our family
And I give you the Reynolds family Christmas 2017….thanks for pulling the pictures together Alyssa!
My husband David was his usual super dad self. He drove to the coast and back on the 23rd, picking up the kids from the Vancouver Island ferry terminal. He swung by Ikea to pick up a new mattress for the attic we have been renovating. Then to top things off, over the Christmas holiday, he made our oldest daughter a few furniture pieces for her new digs by the ocean in Victoria. And finally, he took the kids back on New Year’s day. Driving them home all the way to Vancouver Island in one day. Getting them food at Costco the next day and returning back to the Okanagan in time to return to work on Jan 3rd!
Alyssa was given an espresso machine and coffee maker for Christmas but of course now David had to make her a beverage table for her new appliances. He used this cool grey barn wood for the top and the lower shelf and painted the legs etc all black….it was so amazing! I WANT ONE! (what a trooper ’cause the garage was FREEZING!!!)
Alyssa took a ton of books back with her and of course, if you give a mouse a cookie…she needs a bookcase to go with all those books…here is her new bookcase in calla lilly white with a beadboard backing…very old school and perfect for her blue, white and grey decor at her oceanside place in Victoria
Okay and if the beverage table and the bookcase weren’t enough, our birch tree is dying so David used some of the old wood to make her a lamp for her bedroom. This birch tree was planted when Alyssa was just a little girl so there is some history there and a nice piece to take back to Victoria…..I’m going to get David to make more of these lamps for the other kids….I think it’s neat for them to have something off the our property….and a memory from Lakelin Reach, our homestead
AMAZING Man!
And woodwork talent must run in the family since William, Kathryn and Victoria, made these cute barn board snow men for their Christmas gifts for us….these are keepers!!! Thank you to their wonderful school teachers. They are so blessed to have the BEST teachers in the world.
And just so we don’t forget, Christmas 2017 was very snowy. Thanks to our three strong sons, they kept the driveway clear
So Alyssa, our oldest is back to her high school English gig in Victoria, our son’s Mitchell and Harrison are back to the University of Victoria, and all the younger ones are back to school. Clark our oldest son did his second LSAT before Christmas and he just found out that he did extremely well. He received a 166, which is in the 93rd percentile, so Whoo hoo! a little celebration happy dance happening here. I know he would tell me to knock on wood, but hopefully he will be accepted to law school next fall, and as his best friend who is already in his 2nd year of law said, he would be absolutely shocked if he didn’t get in with that kind of score. Time will tell but that is exciting news for the new year. Maybe all those debates we had will finally pay off! Great work Clark!
So life is humming along here to a degree. Although if I’m being truly honest, I’m a bit bummed. Today my writing group started a new workshop session and I will not be attending.
BUMMER!
I knew it might me iffy, since despite being really careful and choosing the best, most useful gifts for our children at Christmas, we did go a bit overboard. Then there was the expense of bringing them all home and getting them back with food in their cupboards.
And to top it off, during the trip to he Island, even though David was driving extremely carefully in the snowy, winter conditions, a car flew by them and a large rock flew up and shattered our sun roof on our van. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Well, thank heavens no one was hurt and the impact didn’t startle David to lose control of the van and crash, but well, in the end that was an expense we hadn’t counted on. Interestingly enough the deductible we have to pay is exactly the same amount as my writing workshop fee.
Isn’t it interesting how that works out!
How life gives you choices and you have to pick a path.
Hence, I’m at home writing, instead of sequestered with my writing mentor and buds this morning.
BUMMER!
I was really looking forward to digging deeper with my group and getting some meaningful writing accomplished in the next three months. As I was straightening up the house after the kids went to school this morning, I was kind of depressed that I wasn’t getting ready to head off to join the group. How in the heck am I going to get my book finished if I don’t have the guidance and support of my group of cohorts.
And then I gave myself a kick in the butt.
“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.” ~Helen Keller~
Or wrote a book!
And with that quote in mind, I realized that as marvelous as my writing group is, as inspiring as my mentor L is, nothing can prevent me from writing what is often bursting from my soul. Unless I allow depression and pessimism to take hold.
This is a new year, a new chapter in my life and I can write whatever I want in my book. And damn, by the rich smell of my life’s compost, this will be a fertile year. Not just for my writing, but for us finishing up the attic renovation, the second wall above the pool, and more garden space built in the back forty.
“When you lay the seeds of your dreams in the rich hummus of optimism, abundance grows.” ~Lee Reynolds~
We are due to have another dump of snow in the next day or so and while we are still hibernating indoors to a large degree. This is a good time to get some words written, some borscht soup made, and print out the goals I want to accomplish this year.
How about you? Have you written the first few lines of your new chapter?
This is my latest mantra. A mantra that my Traditional Chinese Medical doctor used to say to me before my acupuncture sessions years ago, when I was trying to till the fertile soil of my body so we could conceive another baby…..as it turns out….our William….. And that mantra is:
“This is a new day!”
How do you want to live it?
Maybe reading a book, or making my Pumpkin Roll cake below. If you are spending a lot of time tucked under a quilt like me this winter, I’d love to share a whimsical novel I read over the holidays. If you enjoy a bit of fantasy, you are a homesteading fan, and love children or yearn for them, (and if you are a reader of my blog, I imagine some of that interests you) then you probably will enjoy this beautifully, lyrical book.
I hope you love it as much as I did. And now for my sister B’s recipe for: Auntie Bonnie’s Pumpkin Roll Cake
She gave this to me years ago and my kids love it. It’s super easy too so I don’t know why we don’t make it more often. Okay without further ado, here it is.
Ingredients 3 eggs 1 cup of granulated sugar 2/3 of a cup of canned pumpkin 1 tsp lemon juice 3/4 cups all purpose flour 1 tsp baking powder 2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp ginger 1 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp salt Filling Ingredients 6 ounces of cream cheese 1 cup powdered icing sugar 4 tbsp of butter 1/2 tsp vanilla Instructions Beat 3 eggs on high speed of mixer for 5 minutes; gradually beat in 1 cup of granulated sugar. Stir 2/3 cup canned pumpkin and 1 tsp lemon juice. Stir together 3/4 cup of flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ginger, 1 tsp nutmeg, and 1/2 tsp salt. Fold into pumpkin mixture Spread on greased and floured 15x10x1 inch pan. Top with 1 cup of finely chopped walnuts Bake at 375 F degrees for 15 minutes. Turn onto a towel that is sprinkled with powdered sugar. Starting at the narrow end, roll the towel and cake together; Cool Unroll. for filling combine 1 cup of powdered sugar, 6 ounces of creamed cheese, 4 tbsp of butter, or margarine, and 1/2 tsp vanilla; beat until smooth. Spread evenly over the cake; Roll; chill; slice and serve…..makes enough for a large family of 10….US! Perfect!
I whipped this up while I was still feeling very under the weather but boy was it good!
This is a lovely, light dessert, absolutely perfect after a winter dinner….or even after a light soup, salad and bun dinner. The spices are yummy and so warming. Absolutely perfect to take and share during a winter potluck.
Enjoy!!!
As the new year unfolds, I hope you open to the idea of writing the first pages of your 2018 book with optimism and joy. Let it be one that you can look back, turn the pages and smile.
Write it well.
And remember, today is a new day and anything is possible.
If you can’t see the link above, check out the Celine Dion song, “A New Day.” I remember hearing that this song meant a lot to her as she went through a lot of pain and struggle to have her first son. When he finally born, it felt like a new day had come. I can relate as you know, that was a mantra that I used when we were trying to conceive and it gave me hope daily that each day holds new possibilities in our life.
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Our valley has once again been covered in a sparkling, blanket of white. Driving my kids to school this morning, I uttered the words I have said several times in the last two days. “Isn’t it breathtaking?”
It’s so stunningly, beautiful, it makes me cry.
As I write this post, it’s snowing again lightly. You can’t even see the lake below our house. Magical!
Although winter has it’s draw backs in many cases; the biting cold and it took us longer to get going yesterday morning, as both David and I had to clear the drive way, but what it brings to my life is well worth it.
We are forced to slow down a bit more, take our time as we move out into the world. In that pace, a beacon of light shines into my soul and insights often occur. They are light houses, guiding me safely on my journey. Inspiring me to keep going.
As the snow lightly fell as I was shoveling yesterday, I was thinking how each of us is like a precious snowflake; unique and stunningly beautiful. We have the ability to change the world by the choices we make every day. And yet, many of us squander that time. We rush around with our to do lists running through our heads like a chiming mantra.
Do we feel joy?
Do we feel peace?
Do we feel hope?
and most important of all…..
Do we feel love?
I can tell you the answer to that, at least from my perspective, and that is a resounding, “NO!”
While this is a magical time of year in so many ways, many of us are driven by the lists running in our heads. We are stressed and burnt out. We get sick easier, as we are not sleeping long enough to get a good rest. We are generally feeling unwell. It’s like a vicious circle that keeps us down.
One of my sons, dealing with University exams and deadlines, was recently finding the stress debilitating. When he would call me in a panic, I would simply remind him to fill his lungs deeply and slow down to get grounded.
Stop and
BREATHE!
Are exams life and death?
Let’s put things in perspective here.
We have a choice how we want to feel.
We have a choice how we impact the world around us too.
The other day when I was walking around the grocery store, list in hand, trying to get out as fast as I could so I could pick up the kids from school, I saw a neighbour in the produce department. I think she saw me too out of the corner of her eye and she quickly moved on…. probably with a similar list in hand. Just as well, I thought as I moved into the bread section, as I can get out of here more quickly.
Then we literally ran into each other in the dairy section. We had to STOP and talk to each other. I’m so glad too as that short little, sweet interlude, catching up on each other’s lives; each other’s Christmas holiday happenings,propelled me forward, reminding me why we are on this planet together.
We are here to support each other and make life more pleasant. I left the store with a smile on my face and I hope she felt some warmth too.
We can make a difference in each other’s lives by caring about each other, by smiling and giving a hug, by wishing each other all the best in life, not just at this holiday time, but ALL year through.
My kids get this. They don’t move through their days with lists in their heads or their hands. Nope…but if there was a list running through their little brains, its would be for them to experience
fun,
fun
and
more FUN!
And they are naturally kind too. They don’t need to slow down because they are already at a perfect, in sync pace with the world. They live in the moment. They breathe deeply. They laugh from the belly, and they hug without restraint.
Huh!
I can take a few lessons from them….oh and dogs and cats are good at teaching life lessons too.
So I hope that you are able to take a moment this holiday season.
STOP!
be still,
listen to the silence
and
BREATHE!
Chat with a neighbour, hug a child, sit with a pet.
Listen to the bells of silence,
They are ringing with magic.
Let it resonate deep into your soul.
Let the beauty of the season make you weep.
Rejoice.
This life is so precious.
You are so precious!
And speaking of magic…..I want to share my whipped shortbread with you. Yes, they are magic in a little cookie. I got this recipe from an dear, dear, co-worker, Elaine, years ago. She gave it to me when I was in my twenties and I’ve been making it every year since.
Now it is part of our Christmas tradition. Each time I make it, I think of Elaine and smile.
If you don’t have a great shortbread recipe, let this be part of your tradition too. Plus……it’s so easy!
Last night, I stayed up late making these cookies and watching, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” “Yawn!”, but it was worth it. This movie is also a yearly tradition. It reminds me how deeply each of us touch each other. Instead of giving gift cards to our children’s teachers this year, we decided to give them a piece of our Christmas tradition….a tin of these cookies and some tea and a little snowflake ornament, reminding them how unique they are.
I hope you try making these cookies and years to come, and as you make them, you will think of Hope and smile.
Hope’s Whipped Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
1 lb of unsalted butter
3 cups of flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Opt: package of Toblerone chocolate
Christmas sprinkles or glazed cherries
Directions
Cream butter, add remaining ingredients and beat until fluffy. Roll into balls, press down with a fork.
Decorate with little chunks of Toblerone chocolate and Christmas sprinkles. You can also grate the Toblerone and add it to the cookie dough. A classic for this cookie, is decorating them with red and green glazed cherries.
Bake on an ungreased pan at 325 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes
This morning I was getting the tins ready…glade I stayed up late and did my baking!
I
Magic is in the air.
Can you feel it?
Merry Christmas my dear blogging family.
You are a precious snowflake.
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Oh the joy of season with the twinkling lights and carols playing, fills me with happy anticipation. I’ve always had a quiet faith in the magic of this season and this year is no different. But with only three weeks until Christmas, I’m also feeling a bit stressed.
My husband, David and I have decided that this year, the holiday season will be different. Even though we have eight children, we are on a minimalist path. Oh, I know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron, to have a large family and be minimalists but it wasn’t always that way.
In the beginning, our four older children were raised in a very consumer driven household and they have been used to having most of their wishes and dreams wrapped up in fancy paper and put under a glittering tree. Over the years though, as our younger children arrived, we have become more concerned about the state of our planet. Even though, yes, we are guilty of over populating the world, we now hope to set an example and teach our children to be conscious consumers; walking the earth as gently as possible.
Still, their Christmas wish lists are spread out before me and I struggle to know what would be the best gifts to give them this holiday. Some of the lists were emailed from University, with detailed pictures of tangible items desired. Although there’s a post script at the bottom, relaying extreme appreciation for their parent paid, post- secondary education. Then at the other end of our family spectrum, we have pencil written lists that begin with, “Dear Santa, I hope you are well.” Do I want to burst these innocent bubbles of magical expectation?
Victoria holding up a Christmas card that says BELIEVE….you can see the window seat behind her and our view of the lake and mountains
“Oh,” what will we give them this year?” I ponder, as I fill myred tea pot with boiling water to steep some Earl Grey tea. I look around my cozy kitchen with the old school charm.David renovated it himself a few years ago and I love it. He took off all the cabinet fronts and stained them a calla lily white and then brushed on a tea stain, so they look old and worn. Perfect to weather our large family!
My favourite part of the kitchen is the window seat, which frames the lake view below our house. I take my big tea cup and curl up on the red checked cushion and look out the window. Kalamalka Lake is a slate blue grey this morning and the hills surrounding it are covered in white, as if Mother Nature took icing sugar and sprinkled it liberally while we slept.
Looking out at the new snow, takes me drifting back to a Christmas over 50 years ago.
It was1963 and one of the last Christmas’s my Dad was alive. A year and a half later he was killed in a truck accident. That holiday, in our sleepy, little town of Hope, B.C. which was guarded by tall, forested mountains, we received a huge dump of snow. What a magical appearance it was to wake up and find a sparkling world of peaceful white, beyond my frosted bedroom window.
I don’t know what day of the week it was. I had just turned four years old. My days and years blended into one another, like mom’s endless laundry blowing stiffly in the winter wind on our backyard clothesline. Dad probably had worked that day. I’m sure he was tired after a full day driving truck for the Esso oil company but after dinner on the night of that big snowfall, with a glimmer in his grayish green eyes, he suggested we go and play in the snow. My sister J, eight years old at the time, whooped with joy and was the first out the door, having perfected the art of winter dressing. My older sister’s C and B who were both teenagers, stole furtive glances at each other, to see who would proclaim they were too grown up for such childish play. Surprisingly, they started layering on sweaters, coats and hats while jabbing each other playfully. Perhaps they sensed this moment would ring in our memories for years to come.
My mom bundled me into my red, one piece snow suit, asking again, if I wanted to use the bathroom. I shook my head, impatient to get outside and she sighed. She put on my wool hat and tied the bow then wrapped a red plaid scarf tightly around my neck. I could barely breathe. The final touch was stuffing my hands into the mittens that were tied to the ends of my sleeves. I waddled outside like a penguin, barely able to walk.
My Dad was artfully throwing snow balls at my sisters, who were laughingly, dodging them, as they busily worked together making a snow man. By the time I came outside, the bottom half of him was already built and his lower half was not just one big ball, but a large bottom with a wide lap to sit upon.
The air was biting cold. The sky was ink black and looking up, it felt like we were covered by a heavy quilt of quiet stillness that went on forever. The snow was wet and perfect for packing. Our snowman grew quickly into a giant. I looked at our little white clapboard house to see mom moving around, through the glowing kitchen window. Occasionally, she would peek out and I would wave my snow covered mitten and she would wave back. My Dad and sister’s voices were muffled and seem to come from far away and yet my vision was crystal clear. Everything was sharp and in focus.
Me with our magical giant snowman
Mom brought out shriveled apples for our snow man’s eyes and walnuts for his mouth. Completing his look she reached up high to stick a black top hat on his head. We stood around our snowy creation and mom, wearing only her indoor clothes and an apron said, “brrrrr,” as she snapped a picture of us. In the picture, I was nestled between our snowman’s knees, surrounded by my sisters and my Dad. Although the picture was in black and white, the colours are vivid in my memory.
Dad had never smiled so brightly.
Me with my three older sisters and my Dad in Hope, B.C. over 50 years ago
We piled into the house, with mom clucking over the fact that her grey, linoleum kitchen floor had more snow on it than our yard. With red cheeks and good cheer, we sipped the hot cocoa and nibbled the cinnamon, sugared toast, waiting for us on the kitchen table. Out of the radio, strains of Bing Crosby crooning, “White Christmas,” flowed into our warm kitchen, with the white cabinets and red checked curtains. Oh, nothing had ever tasted better or sounded so perfect, than sitting in our little home in Hope that night, surrounded by my family.
My dad left a legacy. Even though we didn’t have much in terms of material possessions,it was the magical moments of simple living that allowed the notes of our days, to create the music of our life. These moments played a rhythm that rooted us deeply as a family. Now that I’m a parent, it’s my turn to make these musical moments for our children.
Thank you mom and dad for bringing simple, magical moments into my life
I am consciously aware that we only have so much time with our children and then we are gone. Whatever imprint we want to leave on them, whatever wisdom we want to share, the moments are ticking by.
Coming back to this time, I sip the last of my tea and look at my children’s Christmas wish lists laid out on the kitchen table. With a smile I wash my tea cup and start to hum, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.”
I know exactly what I want to give this year.
I hope you enjoyed that little piece I recently wrote for my writing group. I regret not finding more time to write on my blog this fall. But there are times in life when I just need to live the experiences ….do you know what I mean? I think it was Rainer Maria Rilke who said,
“be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
So that has been what I have been doing…living everything and not stopping to ask anything.
But oh! I love this season and want to share that joy with you. I hope with only three weeks until Christmas you take some time to truly enjoy the magic of the season. Let it seep into your soul and let the simple moments of life bring you the greatest happiness.
Speaking of simple moments; I have to share my recipe for snow topped almond cookies. With vanilla extract being so expensive, I have been baking with more almond extract. I forgot how much I love it. I hope you enjoy it too. When you frost these cookies with a white glaze, you can sprinkle them with red and green sparkles….or with toasted almonds to make them even more festive.
Come into my old school kitchen and let us whip up a batch to share with our family and friends.
This snowman was given to me by my mom, who loved Christmas and Christmas music…he plays the piano and sings
Snow topped Almond Cookies
Ingredients
1/2 cup margarine (I find the texture better when I use 1/2 margarine and 1/2 butter)
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp almond extract
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
In a medium size bowl, cream butter/margarine and sugar. Add almond extract and mix well. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and combine well. Now scoop up teaspoon size cookie dough and place it on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Place in hot oven and cook for 8 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet. Glaze with icing sugar mixture and top with toasted almond slices and if making at Christmas time, add some sprinkles of your choice to make them look even more festive.
I made these for my writing group and took them in on our last day together…hope to see you all next year!
Now make a cup of tea and sit in your favourite place and munch on a few cookies. Don’t you think it’s the simple things that make us happiest in life? As you listen to the youtube video below, “Bing Crosby, singing; White Christmas,” think about how you can create some magic this holiday season. Sledding or skating with the family?….or cuddled together watching a Christmas movie? Whatever it is, I hope peace, joy and love settles into your heart and stays for the whole year through.
From my family to yours……may the light and love of Christmas find you this season!
In the front row are from Left to right, Victoria, William and Kathryn/ in the middle are Alyssa, me and Grace and in the back are David, Harrison, Mitchell and Clark…and our cat Ryuuki
This blog post is dedicated to my Mom and Dad……and to our daughter Grace Elizabeth, who was born 15 years ago today. What a Christmas blessing you are!
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
