Warmth and Light in Autumn

I always have a hard time in the late autumn/winter months with warmth and light. Maybe it's living in Spokane, which tends to be a rainy, dreary, gray sort of place during this time of year. But probably it's just me. I get cold; a kind of cold that I'll admit might not have much to do with the thermostat. I also tend to get depressed.

One thing that counting my blessings is teaching me is that there is a stark difference between happiness and joy. Happiness comes and goes. As a person that's struggled greatly with seasons of deep depression there is even a comfort in admitting that fact. But joy? Joy is constant. There will always be joy, even after daylight savings and the sun starts setting at 4:00 in the afternoon.

A habit I've gotten into the past few weeks, to fight off the seasonal malaise, is lighting candles. I've never been much of a candle person in the past but lately I've gotten a bit candle crazy. I'm even seriously considering having one of those candle-parties after the holidays, as my stock is withering fast.

I've got scented candles in the livingroom, that I light for just that extra bit of warmth when the afternoon hits and we are all a bit stretched for patience. In another season we would go outside, but it's beginning to get chilly, we've all had a bit of a cold, and did I mention the sun's 4 o clock bed time?

I've also put some small candles on our table for dinner-time lighting.

And even more in my bedroom for lighting during my afternoon prayers.

The immediate calming effect they have on me is a bit amazing. Josh will tease me for saying it, but I swear they make the room noticeably warmer. And the smell...especially the few beeswax candles I have let off the most comforting smell.

I find myself drawn every day during nap time to the small corner of the bedroom where my prayer journal and bible are kept, which I will admit lately hasn't been the case. What was becoming a tedious chore has been revitalized by the simple exercise of lighting a few candles. And as always, I have been revitalized by re-starting this practice of daily time in meditation. Keeping a sharp eye, I've found that the dim light has also allowed me to let Malachi play with a few quiet toys while I try to pray- a situation that has never ended in much but exasperation on other days the boys' naps haven't overlapped.

Even Zeke is beginning to enjoy the routine of lighting the livingroom candles in the early evening and blowing them out before he goes up to bed. And the dinner centerpiece, as simple as it is, helps hide the crumbs and spills and loud-boy voices that tend to accompany a meal around here.

I think with a few candles, a few quilts, some thick socks, and a really big mug of hot chocolate I might even make it thru this winter ;)

Beauty in the Home

Our house is a mid 1940's cape cod. I believe, to be even more accurate, its a colonial revival cape cod (leave it to me to know such a thing). In many ways it shows its age.
But we love this house.
It lends itself well to quite a bit of whimsy.
And it has enough architectural detail to support the bright colors that I love.
It has been nothing but a joy the past year, working with this space, and turning this house into a home.
I've heard often the quote, "Have nothing in your house that you dont know to be useful or believe to be beautiful" (in fact I've heard it so often that I have no idea the origional source...sorry). I've taken it to heart, and worked hard to make sure every room has it's share of beauty,
and usefulness.
It has been a labor of love, including many cans of paint, many trips to thrift stores, and the knowledge that very often it's the smallest details that make a room truly finished.
But I think I can firmly say that this house...it is our home.
There is no corner, no wall hanging, no piece of furniture, that is not beautiful, useful, and fully representative of who we are.

When we bought the house, it had an *almost finished* upper story of 2 bedrooms and a half bath. We used the space to store our books, and also our TV and video game equipment, but it wasn't quite livable since the temperature ranged from 20 to 100 degrees (no insulation).

Well we are in the midst (the staying up until midnight every night midst) of finishing that space, turning one room into the boys' bedroom, and the other into ours.

The boys' room I am nothing but excited over. I never did much with Zekey's room because A. its the tiniest room imaginable and I couldn't, and B. I knew this move would soon happen. It's coming along beautifully and I'm so excited to share the finished project.

Our room, I'll admit I have mixed feelings about. I love love love our current room. I purposefully didnt share photos because I dont want to dwell on how very much I love it. I spent a lot of time, more time maybe then any other room, creating that space. I love the way I have it, I love the color on the walls (a light calming green). But sleeping on a different floor from the boys just isn't realistic to me getting any sleep, so move we will. I am hopeful, though, that I can make the new space just as relaxing.

And one wonderful thing happened because of the decision. For a long time Josh has been wanting to create a turtle-utopia involving 2 tanks and a bridge between them. I never exactly forbade such a thing but I think the expression on my face was "not in MY sitting room".
Well, between our old bedroom (main floor room) becoming our new TV/library room, and our leaking tank requiring the purchase of a new one, that may very well finally happen...in the TV room. I don't mind an 135 gallon water tank and a 75 gallon land tank, 10 feet in all of turtle-dom if it's tucked away in there.

Especially as it leaves this wall empty.
(ok it was strange looking empty so I put a dresser there for the time being)

Our 5 year anniversary is coming up and year 5 is wood. I think I'll spend the coming weeks emailing Josh links to old pianos on craigslist. :)

Wish me luck on finishing the upstairs. Our goal is this weekend but I keep getting distracted by other related projects...reorganize my art supplies? Might as well, since it's going in a new closet. I've got the paint and stencils out...I should write something over the front door as well... What? Are those embroidery hoops at the thrift for 25 cents each?! Those would look amazing on the kitchen wall...

Housekeeping Notebook

I wrote way back in March about trying to find a new household rhythm, especially in my housework, now that Mal is born and our family dynamic is completely different. It was also a Spring thing, I always want to reassess my household routines in the Spring. And it seems to be going around because since then I've had a ton of friends bring up their own housework and family routines, or lack thereof. Especially in the blogosphere. Ivory blogged about her new housework routine here. Stephanie about hers here. Kim has been blogging for weeks about her housecleaning funk (I'm the lovely friend she mentions, the ones that tells her to "get over it"...yeah, I'm a great friend like that.) Mary has unveiled the new Gardening Section of her housekeeping notebook.

I, also, have a Fly Lady-style housekeeping notebook. What can I say? I just love that Fly Lady. She is a woman after my own OCD heart. And though my notebook is mid-revamp (I think it will always be mid-revamp as my needs change and grow, and also as Target releases adorable Liberty of London file folders)....Sorry dozed off into a daydream about how much I love the Liberty of London for Target line. Anyways, I thought I'd share my notebook, unfinished as it is. The first section contains Household Routines. I started making it more "2-baby" as Zeke calls our family back in March, and now that its been implemented for a few week I feel confident in it.

*click to enlarge* (Blogger doesnt allow the uploading of pdfs, how lame is that? So I was forced to take screen shots. I HAVE all this in pdf however, so if you want just holler and I'll email them to you, Im all about sharing my obsessiveness)

The biggest changes from what I did before are 1. I do laundry every day now as part of my regular morning routine. Josh and I used to do laundry together over the weekend but now there is just far faar too much of it to handle in one day. Babies make more laundry then you can imagine. 2. I have a designated baking day now (it replaced laundry day). Its nice to make all the bread and desserts and muffins and snacks ect that we'll need for the week in one day, the ingredients are already out and cleanup is done once. I usually end up making some sort of dinner bread (pizza dough or french loaf or rolls ect), 1 or 2 loaves of sandwhich bread, some sort of dessert, and some sort of snack food. I also make cleaners on this day, when we are out. Or playdough.

And I think its important to note that this schedule is an ideal. Its not always what happens. Sometimes I dont get around to my zone cleaning and it gets picked up on my Friday catch-up day. Sometimes it doesnt even get picked up then and just waits for the next week to roll around. Often my evening cleaning gets done the next morning because Im tired and dont feel like doing dinner dishes, even oftener clean laundry piles up during the week and gets folded Friday (how I love my catch up day). Sometimes none of it gets done and when Josh comes home from work he finds all 3 of us in pajamas and the house in shambles and I promise to love him forever if he will make us omelets for dinner (and sometimes he says I have to love him forever either way, but he always makes the omelets).


The quarterly routine chores get done usually on those blessed catch up Fridays, or when I'm on a strange cleaning kick, or if I've gotten everything done for the day early. I cross them off as I go, with the goal of having them all finished by the season's change. I also am trying to start to implement seasonal chores. My inspiration was my MIL pointing out that the area under our fridge needed vacuuming. It did. We've never actually owned a place or stayed in one long enough to need to do things like vaccuum fridge coils or change heater filters or power wash the exterior. So as we round into our second year living here I'm trying to figure out all the things that need to be done, and spread them out evenly into appropriate seasons.

After that I have a file folder of household information. The type of filter our fridge uses, the type of ink our printer takes, the colors of the paint in various rooms, ect.

The next section in the notebook is my project section.

Mostly this contains my Project Journal, which gets rewritten every season. I only have a blank example:
Because I like to write this part out in hand, there is just something about planning out creative projects by hand...its different to type it. The biggest section is Around The House, as our home is a constant work in progress. This summer, for example, I want to finish our upstairs which will include getting heat up there, finishing the walls in zeke's closet, painting zeke's room, and painting that bathroom. Other sections are: Celebrations and Holidays, with birthday and holiday and vacation and religious observance's plans; Clothing, where I list out things I need to dress the boys in the next season so I can keep an eye out for sales; and Crafts.

Behind the journal is a file folder with papers that have to do with all of that. A camping supply list for our upcoming camping trip, addresses to send invites to for Zeke's birthday, patterns I want to crochet, drawing I've done of how I want things to look, dimensions for a bookshelf I want Josh to build me, ect.

I never ever ever finish everything in my project journal. Its a planning space and sometimes a wish list space. Things that didnt get done at the end of the season are sometimes forgotten because my interest dwindled and sometimes moved into the next one.

The next section is titled Devotional.

Unfortunately the contents are too private to include :) For the most part its memory verses and a prayer list.

Im going to develop a Gardening Section as well, I think. So far I just have a graph of what I'm planting this year in my projects folder. But it would be nice to have notes on what grew well, what didnt, ect for next year. And also notes on our various bushes, trees, ect and how best to care for them. Its information I googled a lot last spring when we moved in and suddenly I'm finding myself doing it again.

And after that is just a file folder of "Other Stuff". A list of books to check out at the library, and books I loved enough to want to buy. A list of christmas gift ideas. Lists lists lists. I love lists, what can I say? This gives me a place to keep them.

I tried to create a meal planning section but I cant make it work for me. I plan our meals on our calendar on the fridge, I have done so almost since marrying Josh. He's really used to this and looks to the calendar when I ask him what he wants for dinner, he's not going to want to open up the notebook and flip thru. I plan 1 or 2 weeks in advance this way and keep a grocery list is on a post it next to the calender (again, no way josh will open the notebook when we run out of mayo, but he will write it on the fridge). It really works well for us and I realized trying to move it to the notebook was just forcing me to work for the notebook, rather than the notebook working for me.

I also know a lot of notebook people who keep all their bill info in there. I dont pay our bills, Josh does, but its a good idea. I also know people who keep an inventory of household supplies. I've found the "write it down on the post-it when it runs out" work fine for us but It just goes to show how useful a housekeeping notebook can be. Its a lot of work to set up but after that it's great. I must open mine 3 or 4 times a day and I go thru stages of wanting to just move my calender and adress book in there as well and just carrying it with me always, living out of it.

Then again if I had an Android I could probably just do all this in that... :)

A Day of Accomplishments

1. We got a lot of gardening done in between rain showers. I got all the weeds pulled up in the garden and elsewhere in the yard, I picked up all the sticks that fell and will be in the way of mowing the lawn, Josh started digging out the squash bed, and I thinned our lettuce, spinach, and peas which came up thicker than intended. The strawberries look fairly thin, but I'm not surprised since they are transplants from last year, I think we will buy some starts to thicken the patch up since these probably wont fruit this year anyways.
The original plan was to do our summer planting (squash, tomato, beans, and peppers) over the next two weekends but its been so cold I am chickening out. So wait they do. I might have to get a bigger container for my starts if it takes much longer though.

2. Mal is standing if you give him a hand for balance. He will also sit on his own if he feels in the mood for it.

And he will make this creepy face if you pretend to be eating his stomach.
For some reason it reminded me of this face that Zeke used to make...
But then I realized this one was WAY more creepy.

3. I made some really funny looking bread.
Where I went wrong was in trying to get creative and make a tic-tac-to pattern with my slashes on the top instead of the normal parallel ones. That little center piece was a good 2 inches high, lol.
But the real accomplishment was that I succeeded in week 1 of making all our own breads. I made the loaf featured above for dinner one above, 4 biscuits for dinner another night, muffins for breakfast and snacking, and 2 loafs of sandwich bread. I'm using the book artisan breads in 5 minutes a day and it is wonderful. You mix up your dough in 5 minutes and then just pull it out and use it when you need it. So this week was more hard as I had to mix the two doughs for peasant loafs and sandwhich loafs but now this week I just have to pull a chunk out when I need it, let it rise a half hour, and bake it.

3. Zeke learned to recongize the letters E and Z, which both stand for "Geekey!" as he sadly pronounces his name.

4. I got up the bravery to join a biggest loser competition with my friends. My goal is to not be last place. Josh says since there are like 15 of us and it's 6 weeks long there will probably be at least one person that gives up and either loses no weight or gains weight. I would like to not be that person.
In reality, though, I have 15 pounds left to lose after Malachi's birth. I would like to lose those 15 pounds but at the same time they dont seem to bother me enough to get me to actually work to lose them. So maybe the competition will give me the reason I need to work at it. I know that part of the problem is exersizing is nearly impossible in the rainy season with two children under 2. I cant go outside and I cant go to a gym (remember Zekey the stranger-danger freak?). Also since I'm breastfeeding it's not really advisable to do any calorie reduction diets. I can eat HEALTHIER but not LESS. And seeing as I already dont drink soda and dont eat many processed foods I have a hard time seeing what habits I have left to change.
Im going to try some green smoothies once I get to the store to buy ingridients. I have heard horrible things about them. Like they are disgusting. And they make you throw up. So I'm not really looking forward to it.

5. Also....sleeping baby.

6. Oh and soon to be accomplished. A night out!! The 5th night out since Zeke was born, in fact, which is pretty sad if you come to think about it. But we are finaly ready to make this a normal thing. Zeke will accept anything if you let him watch TV the whole time (and we totally totally will if it means we can leave the house without him) and Malachi took to his first bottle like a champion.
So now we just need to find a babysitter. Kim, you have sisters right?

I am pondering...

My favorite part of babies are their tiny little feet. I love how soft and chubby and flat they are. I could kiss Malachi's little feet all day long (and dont even get me started on those cheeks of his). I think my favorite part of very small boys, however, are their shoulder blades. As Zeke's body goes thru the metamorphosis from chubby, soft little baby to bony, bruised-up boy I cant help but fall in love with his shoulder blades. I just love how delicate they are, and the way they stick out when he moves.
---
A blogger I enjoy has been going over her menu planning strategy lately. She has a 1 week menu, breakfast lunch and dinner, for every season. You can imagine how this must simplify things for her. She always knows whats for dinner, her grocery list is already prewritten for her since its pretty much the same each week, and because her menu changes with the seasons she can still take advantage of seasonal foods and appetites.
I sat down with my recipe box and a notebook to make my own seasonal menus for spring and summer to see how I liked it, though I knew I would have to do a 2 week rotation. But as soon as I got down to it I realized that the whole idea just wont work for us. We eat a ridiculously varied diet around here. For example, under my soups and stews tab I had no less than 21 different recipes, and we eat each and every one. Granted I am a big fan of soup and a snoot when it comes to the canned stuff. But still, 21 soups and stews!
I came to realize that as good as an idea as the weekly rotation is that this is an area of my life doesn't really need simplifying. I don't get stressed about meal planning. I plan our dinner menu between a week to a month in advance right now and I don't really have a hard time thinking what to make. Breakfasts and lunches are leftovers or a handful of household staples that Zeke and I decide on as the day and mood arrives. Or some new obsession. I tend to go thru "stages" where I eat a ton of bell peppers for a few weeks and then stop suddenly and move onto smoothies or something else and Zeke is the same it seems. He will want oatmeal for breakfast every day for a month and then just as suddenly want yogurt and never look at oatmeal again. And I like the ability to do that. I also love to find and try new recipes. Sure we have our basics that get repeated over and over, spaghetti, tacos, chicken casserole (which really means 300 different things depending on what's in the house) but I have alwasy enyoyed presenting something new. Which is why we have 21 recipes under soups and stews I suppose, those were all the winners. But I love to cook.
It IS a great idea though.
---
I dont think people give Martha enough credit. You know, Martha as in Mary and Martha. In case you arent familiar with the story, Martha invited Jesus over for dinner. She was busy running around cleaning and cooking and preparing while her sister sat at Jesus' feet listening to Him. Martha complained to Jesus asking Him to make Mary come help her but Jesus gently rebuked her saying "Martha Martha you are distracted and worried about many things." and told her that Mary had chosen the better part.
I've probably heard a dozen lessons on that story, yet strangely enough when I think of the sisters my mind first goes to their reactions when their brother Lazerus died. As soon as he had fallen ill they sent for Jesus but for His own reasons He took his time in coming and by the time Jesus arrived Lazerus was 4 days dead. When the sisters heard that He was finally there Martha came running to meet Him and say "Lord if You had been here my brother would not have died!" while Mary stayed patiently waiting at home until she was called for.
Maybe its because I am a hopeless Martha, I would have been right there with her running thru the streets to my God, to ask Him "Why? Why did You not come sooner? You are Lord and if You had been here he would not have died!" and I know that every. single. day. I fail to sit in quiet learning because I am distracted and worried about endless unimportant things. But still, I think people are too hard on Martha. Mary chose the better part, but Martha's faith was just as strong.
---
I am not looking forward to thinning out my spinach and lettuce, though I know it needs to be done. I hate pulling plants. It seems so wasteful, so violent, so egotistical. Here I am planting seeds only to decide later on which get to live and which die. Who do I think I am? I had this same crisis last fall when I had to thin out the bushes. I felt so bad cutting off all those perfecly healthy branches.

I am not ruthless enough for gardening.

rhythm

Rhythm...we were made for it. We are made OUT of it. Think of our heartbeat. Our breathing. A woman's fertility. And its not just us...the whole world was made out of rhythm, we are surrounded by it. The seasons. The waxing and waning of the moon. The circle of day and night. I could go on and on. No one can deny that God made this world, and us, out of rhythm. (Well, I suppose you could deny the God part, but that is neither here nor there.)

But in our "advanced" culture we have lost our rhythm. We have electric lighting that allows us to bring our days waaay into night, we have electric heating to help us ignore the presence of winter and air conditioning for the heat of summer. We have 24 hour supermarkets that fill shelf after shelf with avacados and strawberries flown from who knows where, no matter what time of year.

I will suggest (most humbly) that in all this conveneince we have lost something important. Perhaps something vital.

Rhythm, and its significance, is something I never really thought about until I had kids. But the more I learn about it, the more I experience our life with and without it, the bigger a believer I am.

The biggest, and most obvious difference I see, is how much calmer everything is when we are in a rhythm. I know exactly what our day is going to look like. More importantly Zeke knows. As a child with no sense of time whatsoever, and very little control over his own life, this is priceless. There are no fights to take his nap, because we have ALWAYS taken our nap after lunch. Its not a choice because its the way it has always been.

Sleeping and eating are obviously the most important things, but I honestly see merit in adding even more to your daily rhythm. When do you do chores? When do you get out of the house? When is the time for play? When is the time for quiet?

My goal, lately, has been working on a new rhythm that better encorperates Malachi's needs and my new (and somewhat lesser) abilities as a mother of two. Rhythm has to change with your needs, after all. And even, I've found, with the seasons. We are outside more in the spring and summer, and alwasy always busy. Its a time of outward energy and its important to schedule in breaks to be quiet. In the winter, however, we are inside much more, and life is calmer. It's a time of inward concentration and its more important for me to be mindful of scheduling active things for us to do.

Its a process and I am still learning. It's a balancing act between the comfort and the ease of the familiar (so important for the very young child) and the ability to understand your needs for THAT MOMENT and "go with the flow" (also necessary with a very young child).

tidbits

Daffodils!

Tulips! (Funny story, last year I had some potted bulbs about here...Zeke was so kind as to dump one of them out and I forgot all about them. Obviously they survived and now I have really really random tulips coming up.)

And the mystery bush (which no one can identify even though it has a really crazy fruit that you'd think SOMEONE would recognize) is getting leaves! And so are my lilac bushes, though I didnt take a picture.

Anyways, all proof that spring has sprung! And I am seriously seriously excited about it.

-------------
And as spring, uh, springs?, and as Malachi gets older, and as I start to get my life under control I am starting to think about our daily rhythm again, which other than nap and bedtimes was thrown out the window when Mal was born. But both last and this week I have been able to keep up with my housekeeping, which has felt really good and I'm taking as a sign that maybe I can begin to organize our "new" life into some semblance of order. Until now its been rather chaotic, kind of a "get things done when you can" situation and every week since Mal's birth I've had a giant honey-do list for Josh of things I hadn't gotten around to. (I HATE making the poor guy mop the kitchen on his days off work but at the same time we both know that this is the reality of being ME. More than sleep and more than time to myself and more than pretty much anything, what I need to stay sane and calm is a sane and calm environment. Such is life married to an obsessive compulsive. He sometimes mops on the weekend.)
But the point was that this will be the second weekend that Josh doesn't have to play catch up for me and Im taking it as a sign that maybe I can start to think about getting back to a daily and weekly rhythm.
And since the whole point of having a steady rhythm is to keep it I'm going to spend the next few weeks really looking at our days, and thinking about what worked for us before, and what will work for us now, what I want out of our days, what I want them to feel like. Spring is a good time to reassess anyways, I've noticed our spring/summer needs are very different than the quiet and warmth (physical but also emotional) that the fall/winter demands. Spring is a time for opening up, I suppose, and winter a time for closing in.
Anyways, as I ponder all these things and organize my thoughts maybe I will write a post about rhythm. Its so important to our life and so ignored by our culture.
-----------------------
2 Confessions:
1. I went to go buy Zeke new shoes and discovered that he measured at a size 7 and a half. He had been wearing a size 6. No wonder the poor child took his shoes off whenever he could.
So we bought some 8's to have room to grow and despite initial reluctance, after a day of discovering how his toes actually fit, he's pretty into his new kicks. And yes, they are high tops...I do have SOME honor left in me.

2. Josh and I watched The Brothers Bloom with Zeke, despite strong beliefs about children watching adult TV and almost 2 years of abstaining from letting him do so. And not only did we give in, but we gave in big, a full 2 hour movie with not only violence but horrible language. At least we could have given in for a half hour episode of fairly innocent The Office. Zeke was well behaved thru-out, playing with cars I believe, and now that Star Trek has arrived (we have netflix) its taking all of our self control not to let him watch THAT as well. Oh how the strong have fallen. It woudl be easier if it didnt take us forever to find time to watch movies. I mean, before Bloom we had a 3 episode disk of Mad Men for 5 WEEKS! Which is why we have netflix. Can you imagine the late fees? But we are re-committing. The things we do for our kids....
-------------------------
Oh and Im adding a catcha word verification thing to my comments. I know this is annoying but for some reason I'm suddenly getting 3 or 4 spam comments a day. When it was 1 a month I was fine deleting them but this is getting ridunculous. I cant spend 10 minutes everyday getting rid of spam on my blog...Im a busy mother of 2 over here!
--------------

Mindfulness as a Momma of 2

Ive written before about my goal of mindfulness and my related hatred of multi-tasking. Mindfulness, to me, is basically being conscious at all times (or as much as I can be) of what I am doing and why I am doing it. I try to eat with mindfulness, actually tasting and experiencing what I put in my mouth. I try to raise my boys with mindfulness, conscious of what I am saying, what I am doing, and what I want them to gain out of it. I cook and shower and clean all with a mindfulness towards what I am doing. It is difficult to explain, I suppose. But too often we race thru life and never stop to EXPERIENCE. The simplest moments can be full of so much grace and beauty. Multi-tasking makes it almost impossible to experience or enjoy what you are doing. And so I have long waged a war against it.

Yet I have found this week that multi-tasking is unfortunately a fact of life as a mother of 2 children under the age of 2. There have been definite moments where my goal has not been mindfulness so much as survival.

I realized this the other day as I nursed Malachi while wearing him in a sling, read Zeke (perched precariously on the counter) a book (thank the Lord I've memorized most of his books), and made dinner (which is in itself multi-tasking...baking bread, stirring soup, fixing a salad) all at once. I wasn't thinking about any of it. Or more correctly I was thinking about ALL of it, which left me no room to experience any of it.

But I am learning to enjoy those moments in their own way. Because, after all, they are only moments. Another time I will be able to nurse Mal in quiet and gaze into his eyes as he gazes into mine. I will think about all my hopes and dreams for him and I will breathe in the scent of him and know that this time together like this is so sooo short. And next time I read to Zeke I will have the time to relish in his questions and in his comments and wonder at how smart he is getting and laugh at all our inside jokes and point at the particular bunny that we always always point to. Another night I will perhaps make dinner in peace and I will enjoy the sticky resistance of the bread dough and the beautiful color and crispness of the carrots I am shredding for the salad and enjoy the deep aroma of the soup boiling on the stove. I will be able to stop to be thankful for the blessing of so much good food, and I will think about how this nightly service of dinner-making so wonderfully represents my love for my family.

Of course on yet another night I will be sticking a pacifier in Mal's mouth to get him to wait 5 more minutes and plop Zeke in front of some cartoons only to realize we are out of some essential ingredient and then call Josh to pick up a pizza on his way home from work. But that is ok. They are only moments. And its in the most hectic of moments, I'm finding, that a split second of mindfulness brings the most joy.

Amid all the chaos that night I had just a second, a tiny second, where I had the clearness of mine to think "I can do this. I AM doing this. My days will never be so joyfully hectic again."

Zen Cleaning

In my frustration Friday afternoon I couldn't decide if I should zone out in front of The Nanny Diaries (which I had just gotten from Netflicks and haven't seen) or deep clean my house. I decided to clean and I'm so glad I did. Middle of the day vegging often just leaves me feeling even more moody and restless then before. Cleaning on the other hand, while harder to start, almost always picks me up and recenters me.

There is just something infinity calming to me about cleaning. Something caressing about dusting. Something decidedly Zen about sweeping. It's a small activity but it leaves the floor calmer than before and often you calmer with it. I think part of it is that I've always seen my home as the center and foundation of my life. It is the place I depart from, the place I return to, its the physical encirclement of my family and life. A cluttered home, to me, is a cluttered center, a cluttered mind, and cluttered emotions. When I make the bed I am not just bringing order to sheets and blankets, I am bringing order to a small part of my life. When I am scrubbing dishes I'm not just scrubbing glass and ceramic, I'm almost scrubbing my soul. A full sink is one problem out of so many in the world that I can solve. An empty, clean and dry sink is one place out of so many in the world where all is as it should be.

I read in an old Mothering Magazine (My fav. magazine by the way, I absolutely HATE Parents) that it is just consciousness that transforms drudgery into ritual. I love that and have carried it with me for a long time now. There is a lot of drudgery in the life of a stay at home mom, yet there is a beauty, a balance-bringing quality, to ritual. As we often say in my Mindful Mothers group, its all about Mindfullness. To be conscious, or mindful, in housekeeping, in mothering, in eating, and in living is a goal worth working for, I think.

So as I left to drop off Zeke to his daddy at Pizza night, and head myself to yoga, I left with a centered spirit and a clean house. Of course after class I ran out of batteries on my cell phone, couldn't find Josh and Zeke (and couldn't call because of my phone) and then got followed around the downtown park by a mentally insane (or maybe mentally handicapped?) man while he made rude sexual comments, did disgusting things with his tongue and hands, and tried to lick me. So I ended the day scared for my safety, disappointed that no one ever tried to help me (of course after this guy started following me I stayed in VERY populated areas until I could lose him), and worried about Josh and Zeke (who took a bus home after they realized something must be wrong because I hadn't called yet and been out of class for a while).

But at least my house was clean.

Healthy Eating

I've been on a mission the last...oh 2 years or so...to force my family (i.e. my husband) to eat healthier. My definition of "healthier" is a very simple one, but hard to switch over to, so I've been doing it rather slowly, one change at a time. (Which is really the only lasting way to change a diet, I think.)

Here is my basic theory: The less the food has been "messed with" the healthier it probably is. I'm all for nature, baby. We lived for 1,000's of years before the invention of processed foods, added nutrients, "fake" mayonaise, ect. and I think we where honestly a lot better off. So like I said, easy to understand what's on my "good" list and my "bad" list but hard to put into action in today's world.

I started, way back two years ago with 3 moves that mostly just affected me:
1. I started buying fresh produce ONLY. No more canned (which has been processed, see?). Then winter hit and I had to also concede to flash frozen, which I've now learned can actually be a lot better then winter greens. (and I'll admit I still keep canned tomatoes around, because hell, sometimes I just cant find any good tomatoes!)
2. I switched as much as possible to whole grains. Whole grain bread (the real expensive kind, not the dyed brown white bread), whole grain rice, whole grain crachers, and whole grain flour in my baking.
3. I switched to honey over sugar whenever possible. I started buying honey sweetened yogurt, putting honey in my tea, and using honey in a lot of my baking. And when I couldn't do that I tried to use brown sugar over white. And when I couldn't use brown sugar I of course went ahead and chose real white sugar over corn syrup. So basically I moved in order of least processed to most processed in my sugars.

As soon as Josh and I got used to those changes, I moved on to something VERY close to my husbands heart. Our processed foods. I made the changes 1 at a time, again, so as not to give Josh shell shock. I basically look at the ingredients list and choose the one with the shortest and most recognizable list. We now pop our own popcorn. Ingredients: corn and oil of MY choosing. We also buy Adams all natural peanut butter. Ingredients: peanuts and salt. See the pattern here? You'd be amazed at the ingredient list on a jar of Jiffy peanut butter or box of Pop Secret popcorn.

We also now buy all-natural salad dressings, all-natural barbeque sauce, Annies over Kraft mac and cheese, steel cut oats over instant, dried over canned beans, whole-fat dairy products, and when I couldn't do any better I switched Josh to Triscuts over Wheat Thins on my mom's advice. Boy loves his crackers.

One place I haven't been able to budge Josh, though, is margarine. Stuff is pure processed evil but he was raised with it and he loves it. And while he will use butter now in almost all the baking he does he still likes to use it to spread on his toast (and sometimes if I'm not watching him to butter his pan for eggs). I just cant find a good alternative. He wants the ease of spreading and I cant stand leaving butter on the counter to rot. We go thru so little that it always would.

And I realize suddenly that you may think we are WAY healthier eaters then we really are so let me say once and for all that Yes, we have Ramen Noodles in our pantry. Yes, Zeke eats Gerber snacks. Yes, I almost always have oreos around the house. And, no, none of that will change any time soon. I do what I can but I'm no whole foods afficiando. Just a concerned wife and mother with a slight yet growing hippie streak. Blame Washington.

The next step (besides further gleaning our snack and processed foods) is to plant a garden so we can have fresh organic veggies for part of the year. We decided there is no way we will be able to plant more then our tomatoes this year (and only those because they are going to be hanging) but that also will give me a full year to start my plot and my compost pile. The key to healthy veggies is healthy soil, yes?

Whats for Dinner Wednesday- Sushi!

Today's What's for Dinner Wednesday is actually what WE ate for dinner....oh last Saturday I suppose, for valentines day. Home-made sushi! It's easier than it seems. And I don't even have a fancy sushi-making kit.

Note: This is not in any way, shape, or form traditional sushi. This is very much American sushi. Be warned.

First you want to make some rice. You need to use short-grained rice to make sushi. Long grained isn't sticky enough. People have told me that if you rinse short grained rice really well before cooking it and then add a little rice vinegar and lay it under a fan then it will get sticky. But why add the steps when just buying the right kind of rice is easier? Short grained rice is delicious anyways.

Then you have to lay out your Nori. You can find it in the oriental section of almost any grocery store. Lay it smooth side down.



Add on about a cup of rice, leaving space at the bottom and top. Then add strips of your favorite roll ingredients. I used raw tuna, cream cheese, avacado and green onion.




Spreading out your fingers to keep pressure even and going slowly to keep it tight, roll your sushi roll up, bottom to top. A little rice vinegar or water will help the nori seal where the end meets.


Slice with a sharp knife.
Serve with soy sauce and wasabi :)





In food-related news, I've decided that in order to save money I am going to re-organize the way I buy food.

I am completely unable to be a cupon clipper. I have tried, it doesnt work for me. And I alwasy feel guilty about it. Because we spend far too much on groceries around here.

But from now on instead of planning my meals weekly and going every week to the grocery store I am going to plan an entire months worth of meals at once and do 1 really really big grocery shopping trip every 4 weeks at the local (new) Winco. That place is big savings, they have great quality meat, and a suprisingly good organic selection. I love Winco, even if it IS a good 30 minute drive from my house and kind of a pain to bag your own groceries with an 8 month old climbing out of the cart (he can slip right out of the seatbelt). Once a month, I can handle Winco shopping. Especially since Josh has agreed to either 1. come with me or 2. keep Zeke at home, his choice.

Then I will just have to buy my produce weekly (since it would go bad by the end of the month) and I buy most of that at farmer's markets anyways in the spring/summer.

Anyone else do their shopping this way? Have any advice?