Ordinary Time

Today is the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. It also happens to be the one night in weeks where we can't see the moon because of cloud cover. But we still celebrated, as we celebrate the lunar holidays... with food.  The traditional treat for the moon festival is moon cakes. For years I have run to the Asian market to buy them, often at the last minute. For Y., though, one of the things that makes them a holiday is making the special food, so a while back I purchased a set of moon cakes pressed. Today Y. spent the day in the kitchen making them.  Well, actually, she started yesterday because the salted egg yolks which go inside needed to sit in their salt overnight. Then this morning Y. rinsed the salt off the egg yolks as her first task. It seems wrong to wash an egg yolk under water, but it works. Y. made two kinds, pineapple and red bean paste. The last time I was at the Asian market I thought I was being so prepared by bringing red bean paste home ahead of schedule. No last minu...

Raise your hand if you are in desperate need of escapist reading. You know, light books where people are nice and kind, where there are happy endings all around, and even the supposed villain of the story turns out to be not so bad. If you are one of many raising your hand, turn have I got a series for you.  Have you ever heard of the Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton? I hadn't until a few weeks ago. It sounded intriguing, so I put the first (of 24!) books on hold. I binge read the first one in about two days and immediately put the next one on hold. I've now finished the first three and am about to put the fourth on hold, but I want them to last a bit, so am forcing myself to read a couple of other books first. Be forwarned, these books are light. I told J. last night that it was surprising that it didn't float off my lap due to its lightness. They are also a little silly and fantastical. I find myself consumed with the current book I'm reading, then a bit after I f...

After one too many comments in various places that imply connected parenting is merely permissiveness with a fancy name. I thought perhaps a little vocabulary lesson might be helpful.  Connected Parenting - Connected parenting is a style of parenting which says that children do the best with what they have and that behavior is communication. It is based on the belief that children really do want to connect with their parents and to do well. The trouble is there are so many things that can make it difficult for a child to do well and instead allow fear and shame to hijack any higher order thinking skills. If a child is struggling, parents do not focus on the behavior but address the root cause of the behavior. With their fundamental needs met (felt safety and connection), then they are better able to do well. While natural consequences can be useful, artificially imposed consequences are not employed.  Natural Consequences - The natural outcome of a person's choice. Some easy...

I mentioned on Monday the book about the embroiderers in Afghanistan. I finished it a few days ago but one part has stuck with me and I want to share it with you.  Are you familiar with the exhibits of clothes women were wearing when they were sexually assaulted? The clothing covers a wide range of styles, and the intent is to show that assault is assault and has nothing to do with the clothes a woman was wearing. But I fear this mindset of blaming the woman for wearing the "wrong" clothing and thus "asking for her own abuse" is still far too pervasive. I think that's why the paragraph I'm going to share is still taking up real estate inside my head.  "When walking, burqa-clad women often faced contentious sexual harassment. Men whistled, yelled offensive words, or touched the women's bodies. Should a woman respond to the aggression, others on the street would assume she must have done something to attract the attention." - Embroidering within ...

Several days ago, I put some cherry bark to soak in a bucket of water on the back porch. I'd read that you could get a nice pink from it (for dyeing) and one source I read indicated that soaking it was all you had to do. Surely there must be more to it because that bark had soaked and soaked and no color was to be had. I checked every time I passed by it as I crossed the back porch.  As I was heading towards the barn this morning I peered at my bucket of bark as usual. [Sorry, I'm realizing I should include a warning here. If you happen to be eating while you're reading this, stop right here, right now, and come back later. Really. I'll add some spaces just to be sure. Alright, back to my story. I peered in and something didn't seem quite right. There was a weird bubbly thing on top and my mind immediately decided I had let it soak too long and it was molding. I didn't want a bucket of mold growing in my back porch so I carried the bucket to a rocky but of the y...