Gratitudes

31 March 2013

Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition.

A time to slow down, to reflect, to be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...feeling better after a fever last week.

...my husband returning safely to us after a few days away.

...the company of friends talking and putting the world to rights, I feel so blessed with the friends I have in my life right now.

...being able to finish off making a curtain for one of our bedrooms.

...finishing the last pair of baby socks that I have knitted for a friend who is expecting a baby at the end of April.

...spending time at home and completing lots of jobs that I have been wanting to do for a while.

...finishing a really good book.

...finding small green shoots in my polytunnel despite the really low temperatures and the snow still on the ground.

...a few hours to myself.

Reading

30 March 2013

We recently spent a day at a local wild animal park, since then we have been reading lots of books on animals.  This is our selection, so far, from our book shelves and at the library.

In Lost in the Zoo by Gill Arbuthnott, Rory the mouse is visiting the zoo but has lost his owner Sam, he meets lots of animals as he attempts to describe what Sam looks like and to find him again.

A monkey is off for an adventure he gets out of his cage and explores the outside world for a for day out of the zoo.  Monkey Do by the wonderful childrens author Allan Ahlberg, is a lovely rhyming adventure.
Buffalo has an itch, an itch he cannot reach, so what does he do?  Itch Itchy Itch by Mara Bergman is a lovely rhyming story about his quest to find the perfect partner to help him with his itches.  The book includes a final page which gives an introduction to the animals in the story.
Set on a farm, Snore by Michael Rosen is the wonderfully funny story of what happens when Dog starts to snore, wakes all the animals up and what they then do to get him to stop.  This is a great book for those learning to read as there is much repetition.
Hodge the Hedgehog by Kate Petty introduces children, through a story, to what hedgehogs eat, what they do in winter and what they do when they are scared

No list would be compete without the wonderful Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, a quest to find the perfect pet with flaps for the child to lift.
Animals Animals All Around by Catherine and Lawrence Anholt is a delightful picture book. It shows what they look like, stripes, spots etc, gets the child to think about what they might feel like, talks about the sounds they make, what their babies are called, how they move and at what speed. This is a wonderful introduction to animals.





Joining in with The Children's Bookshelf a link up of all things related to children's books.

Eating

29 March 2013

I have been giving some thought recently to the ideal of a balanced diet.  What it is that I am trying to balance.  I am a menu planning sort of person.  I plan a seven day menu each week and buy the ingredients that I need to cook it, if I don't already have them in the house.  My plan is not for a specific meal on a specific day, rather seven days of meals which I then decide at some point each day which one I am going to cook, it is also only for the main meal of the day which we usually eat in the evening.

I came to realise recently that as I do not plan lunches that sometimes our meals, and therefore diet, were not very balanced.  Our lunches relied heavily on bread, coupled with cereal or toast for breakfast and if we had a meal like pizza for tea that was a lot of wheat and yeast in one day.  Bread and sandwiches is an easy lunch, one that I had come to rely on, it does not require any thought, the pre planning extended to making sure we had made some bread.  I was not planning on going gluten free or grain free but just reduce our intake of them a bit as they were starting to dominate our diet.  So if we were not going to have bread everyday what where we going to eat.  We are at home for lunch most days of the week and on most of those days I now have a 12 o'clock panic moment as I rack my brains to decide what we are going to have for lunch.  Sometimes there are leftovers in the fridge which are great for lunch, sometimes I make soup, sometimes omelette but it still feels hit and miss.  Yesterday I did not eat lunch until 3 o'clock because I forgot to give it any thought and then had the rabbit in the headlights moment.

Perhaps I should start a plan for lunches too but I am faltering, it feels like a step to far, a bit too rigid but maybe not.  If I did plan then it would free me up to get on with other things with the children rather than being preoccupied with lunch thoughts from about 12 o'clock onwards.  So I am going to give it a go for next week, it is not an atypical week we have friends and family coming to stay over the next ten days so it may take a couple of weeks before I feel it is worth it.  So if anyone had any great ideas for healthy vegetarian lunches I would love to hear them!

Knitting

27 March 2013


The Cosy Little Toes are slowly multiplying, two pairs are now complete and a third pair are knitting up slowly.  The slowing up if progress has been partly due to the fact that I cast on another project this week, I have now have four on the go, as I wanted a break from socks.  I love to knit socks but they are a tad repetitive.  My new project is another baby knit, this time for my sister in law who is expecting twin boys in May,  I initially cast on a Baby Boy 5 Hour Sweater but I was using a different weight of wool and soon realised that it was going to take a lot of time to work out the maths of using a lighter weight of wool.  I have many other projects that need to be finished in the next two months so I decided I did not want to devote the time to working it out.  So I ripped back the few rows I have knitted and cast on a Stripey Cardigan instead.  It is knitting up quickly and I hope to have it finished by the weekend when I can cast on another, different, cardigan.  My sister in law does not want to dress the twins in the same clothes, it was hard to find two patterns suitable for boys!

I have also started a new book this week too, I finished the book from last week, you can read some of my thoughts on it, Orkney by Amy Sackville.  This book is written from the perspective of a 60 year old university professor, Richard, who with his young wife is spending their honeymoon on a wild remote island which is part of the Orkney archipelago, 10 miles off the coast of Northern Scotland.   The story begins as they travel north to start their holiday, each chapter is a day in his thoughts interspersed with his reflections on his life and his wife (her name is not given).  He is an intense character and he loves and desires to fiercely protect his wife, however as the story progresses it is becoming clear that he does not know her at all, their romance was fleeting before they married, and he is finding it harder to protect her as she moves further away from him both physically and emotionally.  I am about half way through the story now and a cannot help but feel that it is building up to something major happening, the wife is not able to swim, she constantly dreams of drowning and spends most of her time sitting watching the sea, whilst Richard spends his time watching her from inside when he is supposed to be working.  I have not read a work of fiction for a long long time and this has been a wonderful reintroduction.

Joining in with Tami for this weeks work in progress and Ginny for sharing of knitting and reading.

Viewpoint

26 March 2013

As a parent I want my children to grow up to be happy and confident adults, don't we all?  Is that an easy goal to achieve?  How we talk to and react to what our children do is the basis of our relationship, most often we choose the path that we know, the one given to us by our own parents.  We are most likely to be using parenting patterns that we have not given any thought as to whether they make sense or how we learnt them, following a script that we have not written.

The way many kids are treated suggests a lack of respect for their needs and preferences - in fact, a lack of respect for children, period.  A lot of parents act as though they believe that kids don't deserve respect in the way adults do.*

Our attitude as a society towards children is poor, how many times have you been seen that look, you know the one I mean, given to the parent of a child who is in the throes of shouting or screaming in a public place.  If as a society we do not hold children in great esteem it is easier for parents to treat their children disrespectfully.  If we treat our children with respect, speak to them respectfully and they feel respected they will in turn respect others.  When I speak to my children I try to remember to use the same language as I would wish to have spoken to me.  In the heat of the moment I sometimes forget, if we screw up it is good to admit it and apologise, for me this demonstrates to my children how apologising works, that I can and do make mistakes and that I have taken ownership of them without losing face or feeling inadequate.

The look that I refered to earlier comes from a desire for children to behave in a certain way, good children are the ones that are sitting quietly and behaving as adults expect them to.  When the child has no awareness of these rules of engagement, is it acceptable to punish their behaviour if it does not meet these standards.  Are these rules justified and more importantly are they in our children's best interests.  Of course I am not for one moment suggesting that running around in a busy cafe is a be encouraged, however if we as parents do not demand obedience all the time we are likely to listened to, when we do ask, if a situation demands that of us.  It is important that we allow our children to make their own decision about what is appropriate in a given situation, we learn to become good decision makers not by following the directions of others but by being allowed to make our own decisions.  We should allow our children to make those decisions that might make us gulp and not to simply say no even when it make no sense or because we are unwilling to give control.

We might say it's our job to be "in control" in the sense of creating a healthy and safe environment, offering guidance, and setting limits - but it's not our job to be controlling.*

If we are controlling our children's behaviour are we doing so with the best intentions.  If a child behaves inappropriately do you think it calls for consequences or, more appropriately, an opportunity for teaching, a working with response as opposed to doing to.  A punishment approach is one of power over your children, of making them suffer, how is that going to help a child to know what is appropriate.  If we find so much of what our children do and/or say unacceptable and we tell them so, often, then surely this will lead them to feel that they at unacceptable as a person, people do not get better at dealing with unhappiness because they were deliberately made unhappy when they were younger.  Too much criticism and disapproval is soul destroying and is likely to stop any attempts to try anything.

When we make children obey by force, threats or punishments, we make them feel helpless. They can't stand feeling helpless, so they provoke another confrontation to prove they still have power.  And where do they learn to use that power?  From us.*

To treat and speak to our children as we would wish to be treated and spoken to requires us to step outside our own viewpoint and to consider how the world looks to them.  If you tend to dismiss people with whom you disagree are you not leaping to make incorrect assumptions.  When we learn  more this can help us to build a picture below the surface rather than just looking at the behaviour as a snapshot, but our mind has to be open to the information and receive it without judgement.

* Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn

Weekending

25 March 2013

This has been a tough week.  The beginning of the week was good we had our usual visit into the local town.  On Tuesday we hosted a visit from our friends again, we had proposed a meet up outside but it was just too cold to be outside for a whole afternoon.

Wednesday we spent the day at home as a family I baked two large cakes with the help of my youngest and we made bits for a picnic for the next day.  In the evening I went to help out with an Explorer Scout meeting which is what the cakes were for, the hall they met in was very very cold and unbeknownst to me was the start of the toughness.

I slept badly over night as my husband got up very early to catch a plane and did not really sleep properly after being woken.  I woke feeling not quite right but put it down to a lack of sleep rather than anything else and took the children out to a wildlife park for the day.  It was a very cold but enjoyable day out and they absolutely loved it but by the time we were done I felt dreadful.  I went to bed early feeling distinctly unwell.

Friday was spent mostly on the sofa whilst watching the snow outside.  My lovely husband had left us with a very small supply of wood (this is a job he usually does) inside so I found myself outside in a blizzard, with a fever, collecting wood!  My children were very patient with the fact that I needed to sleep, and as the day wore on it became increasingly clear that my youngest was also coming down with something too.  The snow and strong winds did not stop all day I don't think we would have met our friends as planned even if we had been well.

Over the weekend we stayed inside and slept, ate and bought in more wood as much as we could cope with bringing in.  The house is a pigsty but we are all warm and moderately happy, we had shaken off the worse just feeling drained and tired.

Gratitudes

24 March 2013

Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition.

A time to reflect, to slow down, to be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...time spent with friends.

...a good book.

...a warm fire when the temperatures dropped again.

...time to sleep when I needed to rest during the day due to a fever.

Reading

23 March 2013

My youngest loves reading books about fairies.  We found this book in the library a while ago and have had it out on loan several times in the past few months.  She knows the words well but always finds new things in these wonderful pictures.


Fairy Shopping by Sally Gardner takes you on a journey along a street, in and out of shops, through a market, a pause in a cafe and ends with the shops shutting and it's time to go home.  It is a treasure trove of delights, each picture tells a story in itself.





It is book that I expect we will have out on loan time and time again and I will be looking out for a secondhand copy in any bookshops I visit as it, sadly, no longer appears to be available new.

Eating

22 March 2013

Sometimes it is the simplest meals that are the best.  The ones where you have a handful of ingredients put together to make a wonderfully tasty, simple and nourishing meal, by chance most of the meals I have cooked this week have been like this.  We have had Root Vegetable and Blue Cheese BakeRed Cabbage Salad and Garlic Beans.

Garlic Beans
250g dried pinto/borlotti type bean
4tbs olive oil
2 cloves garlic
Balsamic vinegar
1tsp oregano

Soak the beans overnight in cold water.  If you forget to do this you can do the quick(er) soak method.  Place the beans in a deep pan and fill the pan with water, bring to the boil and boil rapidly for two minutes before tuning off the heat leave to stand for a minimum of two hours.

Which ever method you use drain the beans and put in a pan, cover with water and cook for at least two hours until the beans are very soft, drain any remaining liquid.

Heat the oil in a frying pan.  Peel and crush the garlic, fry in the oil for a couple of minutes taking care not to burn.  Add the beans and cook until all the liquid has gone, this usually takes a out five minutes.

Add a splash of balsamic vinegar and the oregano, if you are using fresh then chop finely, stir to mix and serve.

Garden

21 March 2013

So the Equinox has come and gone and still it snows.  Spring is slow to warm up this year which is probably predictable as I have been more organised on the garden front this year!  Usually at this time of a year the temperatures start to rise and I suddenly I am running around like a headless chicken trying to get seeds bought and sown.  The ground outside is still frozen and in the polytunnel it is nudging double figures in temperature (°C) on the days when the sun shines.

The seeds I sowed recently onions, radish, salad onions and salad leaves are not showing any sign of germinating I will probably need to sow again.  I was going to sow other seeds this week but with temperatures hovering around freezing I don't think there is much point just yet.  So the only thing going on my garden in the last two weeks has been that we built a new fruit cage to stop the birds eating all our berries before we can harvest them.  Let's hope the warm weather arrives soon!

Knitting

20 March 2013


The Cozy Little Toes are multiplying slowly, the blue pair are finished off, the red pair has one complete sock and a heal turn just completed on the second.  Friends visiting yesterday cooed over them and all said they wished someone had knitted them socks for their babies, a lovely compliment.  I have been deliberating over a third pair, whether to make them on or not, and decided that I would.  I went for the brown/beige yarn that I had in my leftover sock yarn stash and am part way through the cuff of the first sock.  I need to get these finished soon as I have two more babies to knit for, plus my youngest has a birthday coming up!

I am still reading Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn which I am really enjoying.  I realise that is book is not for everyone, we choose our own individual paths as parents each one unique, this book is right for me and I would recommend it to anyone who is venturing in that direction, or is considering it.

....When you come right down to it, the whole process of raising kids is pretty inconvenient, particularly if you want to do it well.  If you're unwilling to give up any of your free time, you want your house to stay quiet and clean, you might consider raising tropical fish instead.....

Joining in with Tami for this weeks work in progress and Ginny for this weeks sharing of knitting and reading.

Lagom

19 March 2013

Welcome to the March edition of the Simply Living Blog Carnival - Clearing the Clutter cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. This month our participants wrote about de-cluttering and cleaning up. Please check out the links to their thoughts at the end of this
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I have been decluttering our belongings for a few years now and until recently was struggling to know how long to continue it for, I was looking for an end to it.  How much stuff did we really want, how much did we need, what could we do without, just when it seemed that I had reached a good state a birthday would come along and with it more stuff.  I felt like I was fighting a losing battle, but I knew I did not want to give up.  A house full of stuff was definitely not what I wanted, I grew up in one, it made me feel overwhelmed.  Then I discovered a wonderful word, Lagom.

Lagom is a Swedish word with, sadly, no equivalent in English it means just the right amount.  I instantly knew that this was what I had been searching for.  I was not looking to reduce my possessions to the point that I had so little and I was doing without, nor did I want so much that I had one of everything and more.  I was looking for balance.

I also realised that I was on a journey that had no end.  It was a continuous one that would go on and on, but that did not mean that it had to be difficult or arduous, more that it needed to be mindful.  I was not fighting against the tide but flowing with it.  When more possessions come into the house I now think it is time for some to leave.



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Thank you for visiting the Simply Living Blog Carnival cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. Read about how others are incorporating simple living into their lives by clearing out the clutter. We hope you will join us next month, as the Simply Living Blog Carnival focuses on Going Green!

Weekending

18 March 2013

It has been a great week this week, one of creativity mixed with busyness.  We started the week with our usual trip into the local town for shopping and a visit to the library.

On Tuesday we headed to our friends house for an afternoon of play.  It was lovely and warm so we spent most of the afternoon outside, when the sun finally went in we all headed inside and had an impromptu felting session led by one of the mamas.  I have never done any felting before it was great fun, we all made flowers.  It is definitely something I would like to do more of.

The next day we stayed at home for the day keeping quietly busy.  We played lots of board games, read lots of books, look at the books and games in a story sack about Polar Bears, played with Lego, made some birthday cards and lots of talking.

On Thursday we headed out for a walk around the grounds of a local castle, it was dry and cold.  We had a great wander around, ate our picnic and eventually headed home as we were getting cold.  In the evening I headed out for a meeting with the folks that run a local Explorer Scout group which I help out with, we were planning a programme of activities through to September.

Friday we joined our local home ed group for a visit to a local quarry and mining musuem, we had a ride on a train, an adventure down a mine, panning for minerals and a look round a wonderful exhibition of mining and quarrying in the local area.  It was a really wet day but it did not dampened our day at all, it was great to spend time with friends.  Despite the fun it did turn into a challenging day!

Over the weekend we spent both days at home.  I finished knitting two socks, one to complete a pair the other the start of a pair.  I worked on the curtain for one of the bedrooms which is now nearly complete, it is hanging and waiting to be hemmed across the bottom.  We built a fruit cage for the garden to cover our fruit bushes which hopefully means we will not loose all our crop to birds.  We watched it snow and snow and snow, not much of it settled but it is still very cold temperatures are barely above freezing at the moment and it is set to last the rest of this week too.

Gratitudes

17 March 2013

Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition.

A time to reflect, to slow down, to be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...baking time with my youngest.

...an impromptu felting workshop provided at a friends house which was great fun.

...spending time outside in the sunshine in the few hours it has shone this week.

...being able to find wonderful free patterns on Ravelry it is such a wonderful community.

...finding the time to sew and nearly finishing a curtain for one of bedrooms.

...a wonderful day out organised by a home ed family for a group of families we all had fun despite the cold and rain.

...being able to get out and do things in the garden despite the cold and snow this week, we have some days of warmth too, it is a slow start to spring this year but I will come soon.

...still feeling positive despite a day of unfortunate incidents!

Seesaw

16 March 2013

Sometimes you have a day when it feels like life is trying to throw everything at you.  A day when no matter what you do it is hard to keep smiling.  How many times can you pick yourself up after getting knocked down.

We had a day out yesterday, a full day out, I needed to collect alot of stuff together in a short amount of time, clothes, food, drink.  Getting out of the house by a certain time is my least favourite activity, especially when it is early, read before ten am!  I did manage to leave on time but I forgot wellies, it was raining and we were going to be outside a lot, it was too late to go back so on we went minus wellies.  We managed ok we got damp feet but we were warm, I had remembered waterproofs, hats, gloves and scarves.

We finished the day at a friends house for a welcome fire and warming cup of tea.  I managed to reverse our, new to us, car into a tree outside their house.  Bang, the light fitting smashed, we have owned it for a day.  When it was time to leave my eldest and his friend vanished, competely.  It took us half an hour to find them by which time we were starting to feel disconcerted as neither is a child likely to disappear or run off.  They evidently did not want their time together to end as it was another  half an hour before we were all in the car on the way home.  It was now getting late and I was hungry.

I stopped on the way to buy an ingredient for tea.  I jumped out the car and ran into the shop as I wanted to be quick.  Yes I did leave the children in the car.  However my youngest wanted to come in and as I reappeared with my purchase in my hand she started to scream at me and would not go anywhere near the car.  I was now entering a semi dream like state, one where I felt that I was not really experiencing what was going on and I was going to wake up in a minute and be at home with tea cooked and on the table.  I did not feel capable of shouting or raising my voice but somehow I calmly managed to get us all in the car and on the way home.

I found when I arrived home that the folks who were coming to buy our old car had not turned up and were not answering any calls, my husband was fed up of the hanging around.  I found that the cauliflower that we were going to eat for tea was much smaller than I thought, it was late, I was hungry and tea was not yet started.  The tea I cooked was edible but certainly not my best, my youngest would not touch it.

By now I was exhausted, not the physical sort of tired which is actually quite pleasant, doing anything involving my brain was impossible.  I felt like I was wading through cotton wool.  I headed for my bed the safest place to be in the hope that rest would restore my seesaw back to level.

Eating

15 March 2013

As a vegetarian who does not eat tomatoes I am often ask what do I cook/eat.  Whilst I realise that tomatoes are a good ingredient in vegetarian cooking I am sure that you would not want to be eating them every day vegetarian or not.  Tomatoes are good at adding bulk and liquid to a recipe, over the years I have become adept at substituting another ingredient, although there are still a handful of recipes I have that I have still not got the substitution quite right.  Many Asian recipes seem to be full of tomatoes which are often hard to substitute as they are one of few ingredients.  I love it when I find one that does not require any creativity and I can just go ahead and cook it.  I love chickpeas and so do my family, we love this chickpea dal and eat it about once a month.

Chick-pea dal

2tbs oil
Pinch chilli powder*
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp caraway seeds
250g chickpeas soaked overnight and drained
1/4 tsp tamarind paste
1/4 tsp salt
3 garlic cloves chopped
1 pt hot water

Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium heat add the chilli powder, turmeric and caraway seeds and cook for a few minutes.
Add the drained pulses, stir and cook for a few more minutes stirring occasionally.
Mix the tamarind paste with 2 tbs of water and add along with salt and garlic.
Add the hot water, cover and cook for 2 hours.

* or more if you like your food spicy!

I usually serve this with rice and or naan. Oh, and I don't eat tomatoes as I have a histamine intolerence and tomatoes are high in histamine.  If I do eat them then I have symptoms of Crohns a disease which I 'manage' by controlling my diet.

Knitting

13 March 2013


I have been racking my brains for a while now trying to decide what to knit for a friend who is expecting a baby at the end of next month.  The reason for my dilemma is that the baby has three grandmothers who are all knitters, his older brother (the baby is a boy) received lots of jumpers when he was born, but what else to make?  The lovely Yarn Along provided me with inspiration, socks.  There were lots of posts about socks last week including socks made for little ones.  I knew that none of the grandmothers were sock knitters so my present was sorted.  I knit several pairs of socks for Christmas presents so I have a few ends of balls of sock yarn waiting for a small project.  I trawled Ravelry and decided on a pattern called Cozy Little Toes.  These socks knit up a lot quicker than large adult ones!  I have knit one sock, nearly completed another and have now cast on a third.

I have been reading a book that I was given for my birthday last year, it has been waiting in a pile on my bedside table, Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn.  I had read and heard so much about this book, I have already read and enjoyed Punished by Rewards by the same author.  I an a few chapters into the book and it has been a cathartic read so far.  My parenting was called into question recently and has led me to do some soul searching about the way I parent.  When I read....

When we make children obey by force, threats or punishments, we make them feel helpless.  They can't stand feeling helpless, so they provoke another confrontation to prove they still have power.  And where do they learn to use that power?  From us.

....I hold my head high and know that I am doing the right thing.

Joining in with Tami for this weeks work in progress and Ginny for this weeks sharing of knitting and reading.

Openness

12 March 2013

Welcome to the March 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Tough Conversations
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have spoken up about how they discuss complex topics with their children. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.
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I love to do research, to think and ponder things through.  But all the research and preparation is not going to make it easy to tell my children that a relative has died.  A member of our immediate family is terminally ill.  The prognosis is poor, my guess is that he has twelve to eighteen months.  My children have both had, at some point, a fascination with death.  The fascination was as a result of dead animals that we found.  They asked many, many questions about what had happened to each animal and if it was in our garden kept returning to it to check on it.  However the death of an animal that they have no attachment to is rather different to the death of a relative.

I have no idea how they currently really feel about this relative, and probably never will.  I have no idea how they will react when the time comes.  What I feel is that I need to be open with them.  To talk about death with them so they are comfortable with it.  I need to be sure that they are able and feel able to talk about it whenever they want and that I am available to listen and be present with them.

My children are still very young, my youngest may not remember this relative at all as time passes.  I would like to put together a memory book with them.  A collection of photos and words,  if they want to it would be good if some of the words are theirs, their memories.  I hope that we will be able to use the book to remember him and talk about him.

On so many levels I am not looking forward to the day when I have to have my tough conversation, but I hope that by giving it some thought, I can be mindful with my words and, it will be as positive an experience as it is possible to be for us all.
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Carnival of Natural Parenting -- Hobo Mama and Code Name: MamaVisit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
(This list will be updated by afternoon March 12 with all the carnival links.)
  • A Difficult Conversation — Kellie at Our Mindful Life is keeping her mouth shut about a difficult topic.
  • Discussing Sexuality and Objectification With Your Child — At Authentic Parenting, Laura is puzzled at how to discuss sexuality and objectification with her 4-year-old.
  • Tough Conversations — Kadiera at Our Little Acorn knows there are difficult topics to work through with her children in the future, but right now, every conversation is a challenge with a nonverbal child.
  • Real Talk — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama explains why there are no conversation topics that are off limits with her daughter, and how she ensures that tough conversations are approached in a developmentally appropriate manner.
  • From blow jobs to boob jobs and lots of sex inbetweenMrs Green talks candidly about boob jobs and blow jobs…
  • When Together Doesn't Work — Ashley at Domestic Chaos discusses the various conversations her family has had in the early stages of separation.
  • Talking To Children About Death — Luschka at Diary of a First Child is currently dealing with the terminal illness of her mother. In this post she shares how she's explained it to her toddler, and some of the things she's learned along the way.
  • Teaching 9-1-1 To Kids — Kerry at City Kids Homeschooling talks about the importance of using practical, age-appropriate emergency scenarios as a springboard for 9-1-1 conversations.
  • Preschool Peer PressureLactating Girl struggles to explain to her preschooler why friends sometimes aren't so friendly.
  • Frank Talk — Rosemary at Rosmarinus Officinalis unpacks a few conversations about sexuality that she's had with her 2-year-old daughter, and her motivation for having so many frank discussions.
  • When simple becomes tough — A natural mum manages oppositional defiance in a toddler at Ursula Ciller's Blog.
  • How Babies are Born: a conversation with my daughter — Justine at The Lone Home Ranger tries to expand her daughter's horizons while treading lightly through the waters of pre-K social order.
  • Difficult Questions & Lies: 4 Reasons to Tell The Truth — Ariadne of Positive Parenting Connection shares the potential impact that telling lies instead of taking the time to answer difficult questions can have on the parent-child relationship.
  • Parenting Challenges--when someone dies — Survivor at Surviving Mexico writes about talking to her child about death and the cultural challenges involved in living in a predominantly Catholic nation.
  • Daddy Died — Breaking the news to your children that their father passed away is tough. Erica at ChildOrganics shares her story.
  • Opennesssustainablemum prepares herself for the day when she has to tell her children that a close relative has died.
  • Embracing Individuality — At Living Peacefully with Children, Mandy addressed a difficult question in public with directness and honesty.
  • Making the scary or different okay — Although she tries to listen more than she talks about tough topics, Jessica Claire of Crunchy-Chewy Mama also values discussing them with her children to soften the blow they might cause when they hit closer to home.
  • Talking to My Child About Going Gluten Free — When Dionna at Code Name: Mama concluded that her family would benefit from eliminating gluten from their diet, she came up with a plan to persuade her gluten-loving son to find peace with the change. This is how they turned the transition to a gluten-free lifestyle into an adventure rather than a hardship.
  • How Does Your Family Explain Differences and Approach Diversity? — How do you and your family approach diversity? Gretchen of That Mama Gretchen shares her thoughts at Natural Parents Network and would like to hear from readers.
  • Discussing Difficult Topics with Kids: What’s Worked for Me — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares parenting practices that enabled discussions of difficult topics with her (now-adult) children to be positive experiences.
  • Tough Conversations — Get some pointers from Jorje of Momma Jorje on important factors to keep in mind when broaching tough topics with kids.
  • Protect your kids from sneaky people — Lauren at Hobo Mama has cautioned her son against trusting people who'd want to hurt him — and hopes the lessons have sunk in.
  • Mommy, What Does the Bible Say? — Amy at Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work works through how to answer a question from her 4-year-old that doesn't have a simple answer.
  • When All You Want for Them is Love: Adoption, Abandonment, and Honoring the Truth — Melissa at White Noise talks about balancing truth and love when telling her son his adoption story.

Reading

11 March 2013

We have started a seasonal table this year, a place in the house for us to mark the changes in nature.  I have been starting to look for books about spring as it felt like it was arriving and put away the books on winter and snow, but we have had lots of snow over the weekend so they are staying put for now.

We have just added a delightful little book that we found in a second hand shop.  Animal Homes by Debbie Martin is published by Usborne Books, this is an old copy and a quick search online suggests that this book is no longer in print so it was a good find.


Each double page spread is an animal or bird with information on how they build their nest or home.  There are flaps to lift to discover more information and pictures.




This book joins the following books which we also have on our table.


Snow is my Favourite and My Best based on the characters created by Lauren Child.

We love the Charlie and Lola series of books, they are a story with added information at the end, funny and great to read aloud.

Out and About by Shirley Hughes

An anthology of poetry and beautiful illustrations depicting the seasons.

First Picture Nature by Usborne Books


The Winter Book by Rotraut Susanne Berner


Snow Bears by Martin Waddell

Jolly Snow by Jane Hissey










Joining in with The Children's Bookshelf a sharing of things related to children's books and the Kid Lit Blog Hop.

Weekending

10 March 2013

This week has been one of busyness and surprises, surprises that were not of the positive kind.  We started the week with our usual trip to the local town for our food shopping and a visit to the library picking up as we usually do a huge pile of books.

Tuesday rather than heading to our friends for a play they all came to us.  By late morning I thought that it might not happen as I had two texts to say we may not be able to come but they did!  We had a lovely afternoon enjoying each others company in the sunshine.  Our Tuesdays are usually spent at one particular house where lots of home educating families meet up, we have been doing this for about two years.  Recently they have felt that they needed a break from every week and decided to make it every other week.  It has been rather haphazard of late and we were struggling with the irregularity, so I offered to host a meet up on the other week.  I checked first to see that folks were interested and that I was not digging my self into a hole I could not climb out of by talking to the host mama to see why she had decided to go to every other week.  I hope we can continue to meet up every week somewhere, in the future.  Tuesday was also the day of our first surprise.  One of ours cars was booked in for a MOT Test and the garage rang to ask if we wanted to go ahead as it needed a major welding job that could take anything up to three days!  The car is twelve years old and we have had it from new, we always said we would run it until it became too expensive to, the cost of the welding was likely to be more than the car is worth.

The next day we visited a local free Musuem for the morning.  It is a lovely small museum with an eclectic collection of stuffed animals, roman remains, local history, local artefacts and local geology to name but a few.  We visit about twice a year and always see sow thing different each time we go.  I pooped into a great wool shop on the way home and picked up some bargain wool to knit some presents for babies that are due in the next few months.

Thursday we spent at home drawing, playing, reading and doing puzzles there was no room on the dining table or the living room floor by the time we had finished.

The next day we joined a local home ed group for a swim.  My eldest has become much more confident in the water recently and I can finally take both my children on my own.  They love swimming now and really look forward to our weekly trip to the pool.  After swimming we went to a park and had a very cold play!

Over the weekend we spent our time at home.  We were busy sowing seeds in the polytunnel which I have little hope will germinate as it has snowed all weekend!  Playing endless games, battleships, chess, board games, memory games and I taught my eldest Patience, the card game that is.  Reading lots and lots of story books.  Baking bread, my first attempt at baguettes which I am not convinced were worth the effort.  Another surprise, our PC has stopped working.  We not entirely sure what its wrong with it but we did here a loud electrical noise from that corner on Saturday night and assumed it was the speaker for the stereo, seems it could have been the computer.  It is no longer switching on, we are hoping it is the power supply, if not it could be a new PC.

We have ended the week with a final surprise, the car that we started the week with has now been sold through auto trader and we have bought another one from someone in the village!  It has all happened so quickly it does really feel real yet.  On Friday this week we will pick the new one up and the buyer will come and take ours away.  We have had long discussions this week about whether we can be a one car family but we do not feel at the moment it is practical.  My husband is self employed and his work takes him all over the place, often at short notice.  It would make planning anything on the home edding front much more difficult.  We do have a bus service which we use but we would not be able to get to some of our friends houses as there is no service to them.  So for now we are sticking with two.

Gratitudes

Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition

I time to reflect, to slow down, to be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...the lovely shops that I have in my local town they are mostly independent, the people that work there are always friendly and helpful it makes my shopping a pleasure.

...the staff in our local library who helped me to find a book in the county library catalogue and then put in a request for me.

...a relaxing afternoon with friends who came to our house to spend time with us.

...my patient children who gave me the space I needed to work out something complicated.

...a free local Museum which we spent a morning exploring.

...two great books that I bought second hand from some lovely mamas on a forum.

...my local home ed group who organise an activity every week for families to get together and enjoy.

...a few days of warmth and sunshine.

Eating

08 March 2013


After several days of warmer weather and sun over the past week it has turned cold again these past few days.  Cold enough that I have felt the need for a hot lunch most days.  What better hot food to have for lunch than soup.  I had thought the soup days were coming to an end.  I discovered a huge amount of land cress (a land version of water cress) had suddenly grown in my polytunnel during our warmer days, so I decided to make some soup with it.  It was very green and very tasty, more so as the ingredients were mostly home grown.  I made this recipe up, you can tell, the quantities are vague!


Watercress Soup
1 onion
1 medium potato
Grated nutmeg
1 1/2 pints vegetable stock
Large handful of land/water cress

Roughly chop the onion and gently fry in butter until clear.
Peel and roughly chop the potato and add to pan with stock and nutmeg and cook until potato is nearly cooked.
Remove thick stalks from cress and add to pan and cook for a few minutes.
Blend to remove lumps.

Garden

07 March 2013





Now that spring is nearly here I have been tuning my attention to my garden once again.  It feels like it is starting to wake up, the snowdrops are in bloom, my primroses are just starting to flower and the daffodils are just starting to poke their way up through the soil.  A visit to my poly tunnel provided me with a wonderful surprise a big bed of land cress which was not there two weeks ago!


I have decided to give biodynamic gardening a go this year. It is focusing my gardening and enabling me to fit it in to my weekly plans. In the last few months I have sowed garlic bulbs and they have all have shoots, I had got later and later with sowing my garlic and last year it was obviously too late as none of the bulbs sprouted shoots at all, and moved two fruit bushes and pruned them and the grape vine.

This last week I have pruned all the flowering plants, sowed some summer flowering bulbs and pruned all the leafy plants mostly in my herb bed.  I also visited the garden centre and bought my seed potatoes, and have chitted the early variety, and many packets of seeds.  I am hoping to grow lettuce, radish, salad onion, cucumber, onion which I am going to try from seeds this year, leek, dwarf bean, peas, courgette, purple sprouting broccoli, kale, cabbage, spinach, chard, carrot, beetroot and turnip.  I have a number of salad leaves that self seed now such as wild rocket, corn salad and mizuna so I only sow these every three or four years or so.

During the next week I am going to sow onion, radish and salad onion on Friday or Saturday and lettuce on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.  The onions will be sown in seed trays and others in to a bed in the polytunnel.

What have you or are you going to be doing in your garden?

Knitting

06 March 2013


My knitting this week is really small.  I have been knitting up leaves and daffodils, to put on our seasonal table.  The leaves will be added to our tree which we were given for Christmas.  The daffodils are to put in a small vase next to the tree.  The daffodils are knitted in pieces and then sewn together, I have made one flower and have knitted a few petals and the trumpet of another.  The pattern for the leaves are from this book and using this pattern.  The daffodil I am making is loosely based on this pattern.

Sticking with the plant theme my reading this week has been gardening books and my garden journal.  I have spent more time in the garden this week as we have had such beautiful spring like sunshine.  I have bought seeds and seed potatoes this week and hope the weather continues to be warm so that I can start sewing seeds soon.

What have you been knitting or reading this week?

Joining in with Tami for this weeks work in progress and Ginny for this weeks knitting and reading.

Reading

04 March 2013


We found a wonderful book in the library today which I am sharing with you, The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers.  We have enjoyed all the Oliver Jeffers books we have had from the library and this one is one of the best so far.  A beautifully simple story told through the eyes of a child.  There are few words but the ones there are, are powerful as are the illustrations.




The story starts with us sharing the child's life as she explores and learns with her grandfather.  Until one day she goes to his chair and it is empty.  She deals with her loss by locking her heart up in a safe place, a bottle, which she wears around her neck.  Her curiosity and love of life is lost too, until one day she meets a child who is like she was.  This child helps her to release her heart and fill the empty chair.

This poignant story covers many big topics, love, learning, death and life.  I suspect that I will want to have a copy for our own bookshelf before too long.

Joining in with The Children's Bookshelf a sharing of all things related to children's books.

Weekending

03 March 2013


This week has been one of busyness and spending lots of time outside enjoying the sunshine.  We started the week with our usual trip into the local town for shopping and a visit to the library.  I had an extra child with me as we were looking after a friends little boy for the day.  The children spent the afternoon strewing  playing with toys all over the house!

On Tuesday we had a wonderful afternoon with friends doing some origami.  We had fun making paper planes and fish.  After clearing up some of us sat and chatted and laughed a lot.  It was a perfect afternoon and just what I needed.

Wednesday we had a day mostly at home.  Our Wednesday friends are away on a long holiday at the moment, we are missing them and looking forward to their return.  We baked some bread, made flapjacks, did two loads of washing, completed puzzles, did some colouring, drawing and read books together.  In the afternoon we went to the garden centre to buy seeds and seed potatoes.

The next day dawned sunny again and we all headed out for a walk around a local lake.  It was a wonderful day in beautiful surroundings.

Friday we met up with a local home ed group at the swimming pool for a swim, after which we headed out of town back to the lake we visited the day before.  We all walked up to the top of a small hill and had a play in the top.

Over the weekend we had a day at home on Saturday.  I did some pruning in the garden, walked up the village, made some pasties, planned next week and chilled out with the children.  On Sunday we met some friends for our first canoe trip of the year.  It was slightly cooler than the rest of the week but it was dry.  We stopped for lots of breaks and made hot drinks with the Kelly Kettle.  It was a great end to the week.

Gratitudes

Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition.

A time to slow down, to reflect, to be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...being able to help out a friend for the day.

...the warmth, joy and healing power of my friends this week when I really needed them.

...a beautiful day out with my family, a walk in the sun.

...a fun afternoon out with some new home edding friends.

...a really productive day at home.

...a first canoe trip this year.

...a spring in my step, it really does feel like spring is coming now.  I have started to plan our weeks more now and am finding that I have more time to spend with the children.

...one of our wood sheds already full of wood seasoning for next winter.

Reeling

02 March 2013

Friends, true friends, are hard to make.  But, with the way many of us live now, they are more important than family who are often spread out across the country or continents.  In the period between leaving my childhood home and settling in my own home, I moved many times.  I worked in live in jobs with up to sixty people, I was a student, I had the time of my life, but friends came and went I kept in touch with some but not many, as we drifted apart and our lives moved on.  Since starting to home educate I have met some wonderful and interesting people they have become very important to me, especially this week.

Finding out that someone no longer wishes to be part of your life, as happened to me in this past week, can be hard to understand.  I have wondered if I am not easy to talk to, that I have a closed mind, that my opinions are too strong to counter.  I have felt angry, sad, confused, baffled, worried, anxious, rejected and happy.  I have been reflecting and thinking.  If I come across opinionated and not easy to talk to that is not what I am trying to be and I work hard not to be.  I try to be careful with my words, to show respect.  What I have come to realise, this week, is that whilst that is important I also need to remember that what I say and do in the company of friends will be perceived and interpreted by them in their own way.  That way will be through their own experiences in life, we can never know truly how another person is thinking or what they are feeling in any situation.

When I joined some friends this week for an activity at one of their houses, I was filled with trepidation.  I was nervous, my foundations were feeling shaken.  I was worried that I would sit there watching everyone having a good time thinking how can you after what I have been through.  I thought I would feel rejected.  How wrong I was.  I was running a little late and was the last to arrive.  Everyone was pleased to see me and welcomed me with quite obvious delight, it was very clear to me that this was genuine.  I could not have ever hoped for a better reception.  I had a wonderful afternoon, the best in a long time.  We all did an activity together, we cleared up the house together, then we sat and talked and laughed together.  It was, for me, a beautiful healing.

I am ready to move on.  My emotions have stopped dancing.  I have learnt so much from this experience.  I am stronger.  I live to face another day.

Eating

01 March 2013

Whenever we plan to spend the day outside busy with activity it is good to have a homemade baked something to get you through the afternoon and provide a welcome boost of energy.  As a family we also spend time during the year on canoe expeditions so I need something that will survive and not be crushed, squashed or fall apart.  I usually make flapjacks to fulfil this need and have spend the last few years trying to find the perfect combination of ingredients that makes a soft, tasty flapjack that stays intact.  My first batch were hopeless, they were so brittle I thought we would all end up at the dentist!  I made them by following a recipe using golden syrup which I find too sweet.  Finally I seem to be getting close to the perfect combination but foolishly I never write it down.  The last batch I made were really rather good and were made using the following ingredients, as with all my made up recipes quantities are approximate I would mess about with them until you find what works for you.

Flapjacks
4oz butter
3-4oz date syrup or agave syrup
3-4oz fruit spread (I use this one from Suma which I buy in my local health food shop)
12oz rolled oats

Extras:
Handful of chopped dried apricots
Handful of chopped dried figs
2 tbs sesame seeds
Handful of chopped nuts

Or

1lb of fresh berries I love using blackcurrants.

Heat oven to 180°C.
Put the butter, syrup and fruit spread in a bowl and place over a pan of boiling water, making sure the bowl is not touching the water, and heat gently to melt.
Stir in the oats.
Stir in any extras you want to use.
Grease and line a shallow tin, I use a 22 x 30cm tin for the above quantity
Cook in oven until mixture is starting to brown and still soft to touch.
Remove from oven and leave to cool for a few minutes, cut into pieces and leave in tin to cool completely.

I have found that if you take it out the oven whilst still soft it does continue to cook in the heat of the tin.  By leaving in the tin to cool it seems to maintain a degree of softness which means you can eat them without endangering your teeth, but they stay together.