Ordinary Time

January did not seem to go by quickly, did it? Maybe it's been our complete lack of sunshine over the past couple of weeks. The movie that J. and I went to last week was Knives Out. It was fun, and we enjoyed it. If you like murder mysteries, this is for you. I'm feeling better today. After spending the entire day in bed except to go downstairs for dinner, I then slept all night. Maybe I was exhausted. Our dinner conversations, when M. is home, have taken an odd turn. Well, odder turn, they are always a little unusual. But M. is currently taking a parasite pathology class. It means that parasites find their way into conversation somewhat more often than usual. J. is reading Little Women to Y. as I type this. They are to the very sad part about Beth, and it is far worse knowing what is coming. Neither of them had read it before. I have joined an online spinning group that has monthly video lessons. It makes me realize exactly how much I had forgotten between the time I ac

I've been in bed all day, not feeling absolutely horrible, but also having zero energy to do anything else. My thinking was that if I spend one day resting and knocking this out of my system, then I'll be good to go and can avoid a lingering illness. We'll see if I was right. To fend off boredom, I spent a long time this afternoon doing some significant work on preparing for the poetry workshop that J. and I will be doing in February. As I was working on this, I came across a quote by C. S. Lewis. "The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal." -from The Weight of Glory (1949) Since I seem to be on an opinionated roll this week, I thought why stop now, so decided to write on another of my pet topics: family dinners. Ready? If you hadn't already gathered, the whole reason to my weekly menu planning is so that we can have dinner together as a family. The meal planning is simply a means to an end. In truth, I don

I've had a few people sick around here and for the past couple of days I've been feeling iffy. I haven't felt actually bad, but my energy level is low. So low that we actually ordered take-out pizza for dinner last night because when I went to take the chicken out of the refrigerator to start making dinner, I just couldn't. I also cannot really tell you what I did all day today, but it was clearly exhausting based on how I'm currently feeling. So, I'm going to cheat tonight and post a lot of links. I think winter is starting to wear on people and children are struggling as a result. I've seen more than a few posts in various Facebook groups saying things such as, "Help! I just pulled my child out of school and I don't have any idea what I'm doing!" Something must be in the air. I've written some on beginning to homeschool, and while I am probably due for another, more recent post about it, it's not going to be tonight. Instead,

If being the mother to twelve very different children has done anything, it has made more more flexible and more relaxed. I like to be in control, and this certainly played out in my parenting when we first started out. I didn't just like to be in control, I needed to be in control. If I wasn't in control, then who knows what chaos would happen? If I wasn't in control, then maybe I would fail at this whole parenting-thing. (Remember, I don't lose or fail well, and I avoid those instances like the plague.) If I wasn't in control then maybe people would think I was a bad mother. There was a lot riding on being a successful parent for me. Let me tell you, though I'm quite sure you already know this, that being in control all the time is both exhausting and impossible. It is also quite possible to feel as though you are a failure even when trying to do the impossible. It just makes you double-down a little more in your efforts of control. If being totally in contr

I found something new that might help with meal planning. It is a website called, Eat Your Books , which allows you to download the titles of cookbooks you own onto a virtual bookshelf, and then it has a search engine which will sort through the recipes for those books. It's kind of like installing a search engine on your bookshelf. I think it is kind of genius, so signed up. It's not very much per month, so I'm going to try it out for a couple of months to see if it is really useful. The downside is that not every cookbook is digitized, so with a collection such as mine, with a very eclectic group of (often older) books, it is not going to be able to search through all of them. The recipes are not housed on the website, instead, when you find a recipe you want to use, you go and find it in your actual cookbook. We'll see how useful it ends up being. Monday Baked salmon      I love salmon, but it is so expensive, we rarely have it. I found some frozen salmon marked

J. and I are heading out to a rare movie night. So you get photos that TM took over the past couple of days.

And here we are at Friday again. I swear it was just Tuesday yesterday. I have come up with a terrific analogy for the different between saddling a horse and harnessing a horse. If you sew, this will make perfect sense to you. Saddling a horse is like threading your sewing machine. There are several different steps that you need to do in order for it to work, but pretty much every sewing machine follows the same basic principals, and once you have those down, it's not that difficult. Harnessing a horse is like threading your serger. There are so many different parts, you have to do them in the correct order, and skip or miss any single little tiny hook and you're doomed. The serger won't work. Plus, each one is just a little different, so switching back and forth is not so simple.  My back yard is filled with BB-8 snowmen. At least that is what I'm told they are. The funny thing about BB-8 droids from Star Wars is that they are exactly the same shape as a snowman, s

We tried Writing cinquains. Some children were happy, Some would rather poke out an eye. Life's hard. Cinquains, Only five lines, Two then four, followed by Six, eight, two syllables per line. Must count. Again I discover Another enormous Gap of what a certain child is Missing. I guess We will now spend Hours and days and months Learning to categorize things. So sad. And then On the other End of the vast spectrum Of my children, L. just whips Off this: I love The deep, deep ocean With it's monsters and fish The seaweed curling around eels It's dark

"On that day, when evening had come, He said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." And leaving the crowd, they took Him with them in the boat, just as He was. And other boats were with Him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that they boat was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke Him and said to Him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" And He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you no faith?" And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?" (Mark 4: 35 - 41, ESV) I've mentioned before that the women's Bible study I'm in is working through the book, The Miracles of Jesus. This past week we were studying the miracles that occurr

I've mentioned more than once about how the younger group of children around here have all become readers. More often than not, I'll look around and see multiple children sprawled about reading. H. has never been one to be left out of what others are doing, and she, too, has her nose in a book more often than not. She is reading the words I am sure; she reads just fine these days. What I wasn't sure about was whether she was actually understanding what she was reading . Because of her need to do what everyone else was doing, I could totally see her sitting there and reading the words without comprehension. But... H. checked some Babysitter's Club graphic novels out of the library, and has been deeply engrossed in them. I think the combination of pictures with the text helps her to better understand what was going on. The other night, H. was happily telling J. about the book she was reading... what was happening and how much she enjoyed it. It was detailed enough t

I don't know about you, but we have been hit full force with the Yoda phenomenon. I would blame this on Baby Yoda, but I can't. (And yes, I know Baby Yoda is not his name. According to D. his actual name is Nigel. I will continue to call him Baby Yoda, just like I still use the terms Marshall Field's, the Sear's Tower, and Comisky Park.) What I blame it on is the recorded book G. and L. brought home that has something to do with Origami Yoda. Since I try very, very hard to not listen to the endless recorded books which are nearly constantly playing in my house, I can't actually tell you what it is about, except that it seems to be a school story which also has a character named Origami Yoda. I am still very unclear how this works, but don't really care to have someone explain it to me. What it does mean is that the house is awash with origami Star Wars characters, mainly Yoda. Origami Yoda by L. This would be fine. I could deal with this. But the other

The past month or so I have found quite a few good deals on meat at the grocery store(s), so have been stocking up. This means my already full freezer has been getting more and more full. When I stuck last week's haul in, I realized I was at capacity and something was going to have to go. So this week's goal was to empty the freezer a bit. This will also make my weekly grocery bill be a very happy number I'm expecting. Monday Broiled trout      I found several trout fillets on sale a while back, so I looked up what to do with them in Fannie Farmer and broiling seems easiest Sauteed zuchinni      A. requested this as she has been craving it Stuffing      From a box Tuesday Lentils and lamb      I decided to also look up in Fannie Farmer what to do with some of the lamb I have in my freezer, so we're going to try this. Plus, I bought 25 pounds of lentils from the last bulk order, so have plenty of them. Salad Wednesday Ravioli      Frozen, which I foun

I am stuck for something to write. When my children are stuck for something to write, one of the things I have them do is make a list of ten things... things they like, things they dislike, etc. So I will take my own advice and make a list. 1. I have never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Really. I have it sitting on my shelf to read this year. Because I was in honors English classes in high school, I missed having it be part of the usual high school curriculum. We read other things, The Iliad, Canterbury Tales, Don Quixote. It always feels a little embarrassing to admit that. 2. I used to be an incredibly picky eater. It was a conscious decision on my part to change my eating habits. My list of foods I would not eat used to be extremely long. Now, I have foods I don't care for, but will eat just about anything under the right circumstances. I'll admit, though, that I have never served my children lima beans. I just do not like them. 3. I have been to every state in the US

I feel kind of done in by the week, but for no apparent reason. I'm sure it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that I might stay up too late reading. Speaking of reading, if you are looking for a really good book that is just a fun read, I highly suggest The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. It's one of those books that you can spend several hours reading at a time and didn't realize time has passed.  Making polenta using the double boiler method worked extremely well. I made two meals of polenta at one time with very little effort. It does take a couple of hours to cook, but aside from stirring it every so often, there is nothing else you need to do with it. I will never make polenta by standing and stirring it ever again. As it seems to do every year, the National Geographic travel catalog arrived this past week. You know, it's the one where it tells you all about the fantastic hiking trips you can take... hiking around Scotland, hikin

I think I've been pretty transparent about my parenting journey. How I started out being exceptionally consequence-based... and it working for our first five children... leading me to think I totally had this parenting gig figured out. And then we brought home our first child who had experienced a high degree of trauma and our world fell apart. That didn't stop me from trying all my best consequence-based parenting tricks, over and over and over, but they didn't work. It took me years to slowly realize that I needed to parent a completely different way. In the process of figuring out what that was going to look like, very early on I remember watching a DVD made by Brian Post talking about lying. What I remember most was the story he told about Gandhi. Gandhi's son was late picking him up from the airport one time, but instead of telling the truth about why he was late, he lied. Eventually it came out that there was a real reason for the son's lateness. Upon learn

I received an email reminding me that my four year post-placement reports for R. and Y. are due soon. I guess I'll be working on those this weekend. After this one, we will only have one more post-placement report to go. I can't quite believe it has been four years since we were in China bringing these girls home. It seems both too short and too long a time. It's interesting that it feels as though they have been here always, yet it wasn't that long ago that we made the trip. This is especially true where Y. is concerned. Even though her initial transition was emotional painful, she has pretty much fit seamlessly into our family.She is a very intelligent child, both emotionally and intellectually, and this has served her well as she navigated having her world upended and having to learn everything over again. Y. is one of those rare children who do catch-up and is at the same level as her age mates. We do butt heads occasionally, if I am being transparent. Y. is a p

Sometimes when I sit down to plan the weekly meal menu, I get everything ready, have paper and pen at the ready, and cannot think of a single thing I know how to cook. See? It happens to the best of us. Sometimes in these situations, you need to impose a set of limitations on yourself because clearly, having everything too open-ended isn't working. Too many options are not always helpful. So this afternoon, I decided I would choose meals out of a variety of cook books. It was enough to get me over the hurdle of having forgotten how to cook, and I was able to come up with a week's worth of meals. Monday (From The New Basics Cookbook , which isn't so new anymore having been published in the last 1980's. But it is one that I refer back to pretty consistently. Polenta, Sausage, and Tomato Layers      I really like this recipe, but really don't like making the polenta. But in my new Italian cook book, there is a recipe for making polenta using a double-boiler whic

There are some days where I feel that being annoyed by things is my super power. I don't want it to be, but sometimes I just can't help it. What is it this time, you ask? Well, this is more of a variation on a familiar theme. Remember when we were traveling through Afric a on our 'round the world trip, and I was looking for specific county maps so we could do our map work? And how I discovered that the (highly thought of) resource I was using had exactly one map of Africa, that being the continent ? (I am not counting ancient Egypt as part of the count, because that was included for a specific era and not because of the country itself.) The same thing has happened again. What is worse is that, though it is such a glaring error, it took me a long time to even realize something was missing. We are so conditioned to erase an entire continent in our thinking that we don't even realize it is missing. But you are still sitting there wondering what the heck I'm talk

Let's jump right in... We are supposed to have some significant winter weather this weekend, but what exactly that weather will look like and when it will happen seems to be totally up in the air. I've seen such conflicting reports that I'm not sure whether we should expect a couple of inches of snow (which hardly warrants the hoopla surrounding it) or if indeed another ice age is about dawn tomorrow and we can expect to be without power for days on end. I'm finding it difficult to get too worked up about it. I did, however, put another layer of straw in the chickens' coop, hang their heated waterer back up, and made sure we had enough toilet paper in the house. That's as much as I can manage for extreme (or not) winter storm preparedness. Tonight's dinner was the baked spaghetti, which we were trying for the first time despite the recipe having been in my binder forever. It was so good, I looked up the recipe for you so you can enjoy it, too. It's r

I'm going to be a bit crotchety and unpopular today. Sometimes there is just something that needs to be said out loud, even if it seems to go completely against current cultural practices. You ready? You do not need to sign your child(ren) up for every activity out there. They do not need to play organized sports. You do not need to kill yourself driving children hither and yon, eating dinner in the car, and never having a real meal together or any real family time. Your children will not be ruined. They will still get into college. They will still be successful adults. It is okay to say no to something. Now, before you bombard with me with how wonderful certain activities are and how much your children love them and how much they gain from them, let me just say, I know. I know that children can be enriched by outside activities and classes. I know they can gain beneficial skills by playing organized sports. I'm not saying you should never sign your child up for these thing

This afternoon I was finally able to catch my breath a bit. This meant that I had a chance to sit down and do some research for a co-op class I'm teaching as well as doing a bit of spinning. It makes for a calmer and happier day in general. I find, though, that when I do sit down to read in the afternoon, I gravitate towards non-fiction. It seems acceptable in my head to read non-fiction, especially if I also happen to be taking notes, during the day, but rarely do I read fiction. If it is a vacation or a free Sunday afternoon, I'll happily sit curled up on the couch and read fiction for several hours, but I just never do that during the week. The only exception is if I am extremely close to the end of a book and need, NEED, to know how it all ends. In that case, I usually find I'll be more productive if I can just get the book out of the way. In general, though, I think of fiction as for the end of the day after the things that need to be done are finished. I wonder if I

Yesterday saw us back to our regular schedule. As far as first days back after a break, Monday wasn't too bad. People remembered how to do math relatively quickly after a little bit of required moaning. I, on the other hand, am clearly out of shape. I think I enjoyed my break a little too much, with not having something to do something every single minute of the day. Getting through yesterday just about did me in. Of course, I did run important errands first thing after settling everyone down with their math. Then we did school, followed immediately by me leaving for my riding lesson. As I mentioned earlier, to make things work, I needed to shift my grocery shopping, so I did that after my lesson. By the time I got home and we got the groceries unloaded and put away, it was teatime. Since teatime was a little later than usual, it was followed by feeding the horses after which I finally had a few moments to get a shower. After the much needed shower dinner was looming. Actually it w

I was in the process of switching my grocery shopping day from Thursday to Monday this past week, which explains why the weekly menu seems a bit longer than usual. When you are offered a chance to learn to drive (a horse and cart), you don't pass it up, but it did require some tweaking of the schedule. Thursday Green Chili chicken soup      - Well, that's what I called it for the menu. Really, it should have been called leftover and clean out the freezer soup. I threw in the rest of the green chili-chicken tamale filling, the rest of the chicken stock from the tamales, 2 quarts of turkey stock from the freezer (where I have gallons that we made with the three Thanksgiving turkeys), some frozen black beans, some frozen corn, an onion, and some small pasta from the pantry. It was good; we will never have it again. Homemade corn tortillas      - I think I have finally become proficient at making these. No swearing was involved. Friday Coconut beef curry      - A family

If you are a long time reader, then you are familiar with L.'s rather strong and unique personality. She was an easily frustrated baby and toddler, which didn't always make for easy parenting. I had a feeling when she was very little that there was just a lot going on inside her head, and it was frustrating to not be able to do anything about it. As she got older, this very definitely proved to be the case. There is a lot going on inside that head of hers. Reading has been the very best thing for L. Here is a picture I took of her earlier today as she was reading. I know, it doesn't look comfortable, but she was quite happy. Being able to read as many stories as she wants to hear has been wonderful. I used to have to travel with books because when life got to be too much for her only a listening to a story would bring her back from the brink of total meltdown. Of course, being able to read also fills her head with even more ideas... for better or for worse. Take he