Learning

A few recent, fun lessons for/with Judith :-)

Reading
Judith loves books, but it's only recently that she's willing to sit and look at them on her own, without being read to.  One day last week, after she'd been in her room (playing quietly!) for quite some time, I peeked in to make sure she was still alive.  This is what I saw:

The hat is one that I'd made for her a year or so ago.  The book is the Curious George collection.  She'd managed to get the hat on herself (over her ponytails, no less!) and was sitting quietly telling the stories to herself.  Of course, as soon as she saw me she invited me to come read to her, but it was a sweet moment nonetheless.

Water Play
Bath time is Daddy time. (And it's Mama's time to clean up the kitchen and do a few other things without interruption!)  And he and Judith have fun playing in the water and sometimes doing little experiments (like discovering that if you put a wet washcloth over a cup of water and turn it upside down, the water stays in the cup).  This time, they called me in to see what was happening.  As the picture below sort-of shows, Judith was pouring water over her own face/head, and actually enjoying it!  (This from the child that used to scream bloody murder when her hair was rinsed!)  This gives me great hope for the success of swimming lessons this year.

Bass Guitar Lessons
Lance recently started giving bass lessons to a teenage friend of ours (in exchange for babysitting - Yay!).  So he's been playing his bass a little more too, and Judith is very interested.  She certainly isn't going to escape music in this house - not that she wants to :-)

The Joy
My little one continues to grow up!  And every new discovery fills her with joy.  Most of the time that's pretty contagious.

Joy to you!
Barbara

Recent Adventures

Finally, a blog with pictures!  And since it’s been so long, this is an all-round update, with Judith stories and crochet and baking and more.  Our everyday adventures :-). 

Peanut Butter Cookies

squiggly peanut butter cookie

A friend of mine asked me to do peanut butter cookies for her sister’s wedding.  And she wanted them to be heart shaped.  With initials.  So I checked online for recipes for peanut butter cutout cookies.  But the reviews for each recipe I found said either that the recipe was tasteless, or that it was way too soft to roll out.  So I used the recipe that my sister makes, because I know people like it.  (This was only like my second time ever making peanut butter cookies.  They’re really not my favorite!)  The dough was soft, but not too soft to roll out between sheets of wax paper (my pastry teacher would say “pastry chefs are laughing!”).  Honestly, I wasn’t fully satisfied by my handwriting on the initials, although both Lance and my friend said they were beautiful.  But I was thrilled with how these squiggly ones turned out! 

Teaching Preschool

February 27 was my first day teaching the preschool co-op.  I got to teach about Summer, and yellow, and squares.  I searched the internet for fun ideas, and found some great resources.  We traced the squares in an “Itsy Bitsy” book, had homemade yogurt popsicles on an indoor “picnic” for our snack, and made paper bowl suns for our craft.  All-in-all, a good experience, and I’m already looking forward to teaching “Taste” April 2.

"can I have it now?"

The Moose-Bear Boat

As I was working in the kitchen one day, Judith came scooting around the corner on these friends, using her legs like oars to propel herself along.  She said it was her boat.

Must be rough water

Tamales

Lance asked me to make tamales!  (Actually, what he said was “With all of your recent discoveries/experiments with different recipes and things, I was wondering if you would find a good recipe and make me some tamales?”)  So I went searching.  And found a recipe.  And bit the bullet and bought some pork and cooked it in the crock pot until it fell apart (gross!) and added salsa.  Then I made the masa according to the package directions, and assembled them.  I made only as many as one batch of masa made, because I wasn’t sure if Lance would like them.  But he did...especially with some mole sauce and fresh cilantro.  He at about one third of what I’d made and I froze the rest.  He’s requested that I try to make sauce-from-scratch ones next.  We’ll see.

Assembly line ready

the finished "present"

as served, with green mole and fresh cilantro

Crochet Projects:

Crowns:  at the request of a friend I made a crown using this pattern, modifying it in some places as suggested in the pattern’s comments.  And then I experimented with another smaller, simpler crown that I could possible put beads or jewels on.  I’m pretty happy with the result, especially because I was mostly feeling my way through what I was doing.  Which paved the way for:

Cupcake Nametags:  at MOPS this week we had “cupcake wars”, a competition between tables to see who could decorate the best.  And in the interest of table spirit, I decided to try making some crochet cupcake nametags.  I think they turned out rather well – and I didn’t have a pattern at all, just a picture that gave me somewhere to start.  (I suppose, if someone requested, I could try writing the pattern down :-)

crowns...bottom is from a pattern, top is improvised

crochet cupcake nametag

And progress continues on the big blanket for our bed.  I'm ready to crochet the border!  Look for a big reveal soon!

Bubblebath Fail

In an effort to save money but still be green, I tried two different recipes for bubblebath using castille soap.  Neither worked at all.  The bubbles lasted for approximately thirty seconds, and then the water was just cloudy.  I’ve seen some other recipes for DIY bubblebath that just add a little water to body wash, but since I’m trying to avoid sodium lauryl sulfate, that’s not what I’m looking for.  Guess I’ll have to write that one off.

The Joy

Lots of learning, lots of chocolate, lots of gifting...of course there’s joy!

Joy to you!

Barbara

Goal Check-Up

Since we’re two months into the year, I’ve decided I should do a spot-check on my goals, to see how I’m doing.   Just one more way to hold myself accountable!

I will reach and maintain my weight loss goal – not doing so well on this one!  I have lost some weight since January, but I think was more due to the stomach flu than anything else.  I’m having an extremely hard time finding motivation to track what I’m eating and to make healthy eating (snack) choices.

I will plan more healthy meals for myself and my family (not just meals that aren't high in calories) including salads with most dinners – doing pretty well here.  I’ve been experimenting with new recipes from Pinterest, and getting in the habit of making salads.

I will study my Bible more regularly and more passionately – my in-depth study on James continues.  Most days, as soon as Lance comes home from work I have “quiet time”.  Judith knows that this is my time, and that she needs to get help from Daddy (not me) if she needs it.  She also knows that this is time that I’m reading about Jesus, and I love being able to model Bible study time to her.  Weekends mess with my schedule, though, and I’m not as diligent about studying.

I will make time (and arrange child care) for more dates with Lance – nope, not yet!

I will research and create a plan for homeschooling Judith – I’ve been in conversation with a couple friends about their home school plans.  I certainly don’t have a “plan” yet, but my research is progressing. 

I will invite guests for dinner at least once every two months – one couple came in February!  Now to find someone for April.

I will more closely follow our grocery budget, curbing splurge impulses – ummm...not too sure on this one.  I think I’m doing pretty well curbing impulses – but with all the new recipes I’ve been trying, and more visits to the farmers’ market, we’ve been over-budget food-wise.

I will not go to bed without cleaning up the kitchen – doing very well one this one!  I’ve only not-cleaned two or three times since January!

I will care for my houseplants so that they thrive instead of being just barely kept alive – so far so good.  I’m getting into the routine of watering days, and I’ve started to re-pot (or at least re-soil) so that they’ve got more nutrients to draw from.

I will blog at least once per week – yay!  I’ve been keeping up with this one.  Although I do have to admit that don’t blog as often as I’d like to – mostly because I don’t make it a priority.

So it looks like I’m doing pretty well on these (if I can just get motivated to stick to weight loss!).  At the same time, I know I’m struggling with finding joy – Judith’s been sleeping less, so I’ve been sleeping less, and that saps a lot of my energy.  In the coming months, I hope to be a little more responsible about getting enough sleep, and about managing my frustration with a tired-yet-hyper child.

Joy to you!

Barbara

Frustration!

Yesterday was not good.  In fact, it was so not-good that I deliberately waited until today to post about it, just so that there was a little space (and perspective) between it and me.  No, there was nothing horrendous or tragic.  It was just a long string of frustrations pieced together throughout the day.  (And in the cold light of morning some most of them look rather petty.  Oh well.  I'm blogging about them anyway.  This is about learning to find joy in everything!)

It started bright and early at 5:55 a.m. with a little girl who decided that sun was shining and she should get up.  (And this was despite a somewhat-later-than-normal bedtime, which meant that she did NOT have enough sleep.)  We went through our normal morning routine, got breakfast, and turned on some cartoons (she's currently enamored of a British kids' TV show called "Kipper").  I went to the computer to eat my breakfast while checking email, facebook, etc.

And I heard a loud CRASH, with tinkling wind chimes on the end of it.  Judith had (finally) pulled the living room drapes down on top of herself.  No worries!  She was not hurt in any way.  She was hiding under a couch pillow when I got to the living room, so she'd obviously scared herself.  I'm really hoping this means that she actually might stop pulling on the curtains now.  At any rate, I woke Lance up to help me clean up the mess (yes, he slept through the huge crash and the subsequent commotion), got dressed, and took Judith to do the weekly grocery shopping.  She was perhaps, cowed enough from the curtain incident to be pretty well-behaved for all our errands.

At the farmer's market I went straight to the herb stand because I'd seen this wonderful indoor herb garden idea and was very excited to try it.  In talking to the herb lady, I mentioned that I was going to be growing them indoors, and she looked at me like I was incredibly stupid and said "good luck with that."  I explained that I hadn't been able to get herbs to grow at all outside, and I thought inside would be the way to go...long story short, she convinced me that and indoor herb garden wouldn't work.  And just like that, all my lovely plans for the indoor herb display were gone.  (Anyone have a half-wine barrel they want to get rid of?  I'm going to try some outdoors.)

When we got home, I went out into the yard to do some watering and a few other odds and ends.  And discovered that, in spite of warnings and injunctions and explanations about growing things, a little girl had been hoeing in my brand-new lettuce patch!  Half of the tiny, just-peeking-up seedlings were ripped up.  I cried. (OK, I also yelled and screamed some.)  And Lance talked Judith into coming to apologize.  And assessed the damage and replanted, and hope that new seedlings will grow.  (And I took away Judith's hoe.)

Back inside about ten minutes later to discover that Judith had wet her pants again.  This week she's been SO up and down potty-wise.  One day she'll have dry pants all day, and the next she'll have five accidents.  And she's once again stopped telling me if she has an accident, and her rash is getting nasty again.

The rest of the day was major-incident free.  I even got to take a short nap.  But my attitude was horrible.  In hindsight, I should have shut myself in my room for awhile just to reset my heart.  But I kept going through task after task (checking off things on the to do list!), and getting more and more tired and frustrated with the day. 

The Joy
Oh man, really?  Is there joy here?  There's joy that yesterday is over! :-)  I persevered - not really - I was so not who I want to be yesterday.  I said things I regret.  My priorities were all screwed up.  But I can recognize that and move on.  That's progress, right?

joy to you
Barbara

By hook, cook, and laboratory!

(because I didn't want to write two blogs - and I don't have pictures - my two DIY experiments are included here today :-)

Purple Cauliflower (cook)
See this gorgeous thing that I found at the Farmers' Market?

I'd already been planning to get cauliflower because I was assigned to bring the side dish to our Sunday night small group meeting, and I wanted to re-make this dish (from Pinterest, of course!).  I just couldn't pass up the glory of the purple one!  Here's how it turned out:

all chopped up, tossed, and ready to roast 

It looks a lot like I was letting Judith paint vegetables.  :-)  I really expected that (like with the purple bush beans that I grow) the color would leach out of the cauliflower during cooking.  I even saved some out to take along to group to prove that it had really been purple.  Instead the opposite happened!  Lance compared it to blanching broccoli - which enhances the color.  The roasted cauliflower was a deep, dark purple.  The picture below really doesn't do it justice, but it was the best I could get.

After cooking

And it tasted good too!  (Notice the small amount left above - and that was only saved se I could take the picture.)

Most people assumed I'd done something to make it purple, but it really just grows that way.  Wikipedia says:  Purple color in cauliflower is caused by the presence of the antioxidant group anthocyanins, which can also be found in red cabbage and red wine. Varieties include 'Graffiti' and 'Purple Cape'.  I'm almost tempted to try to grow some, but I'm afraid mine would be full of aphids.

Bunny Slippers (hook)
shhhh...I made these for a friend.  She had posted a picture of some made for children, and waxed so eloquent about them that I thought, why not?  I searched around for a pattern, but couldn't find one, but I found this one that was pretty close, and I modified it to fit her feet instead of a baby's.  Then I experimented with eyes and the tail.  I think they turned out pretty well, but we'll see what she thinks!

DIY Dishwasher Detergent (lab)
We came to the end of our dishwasher detergent supply this week, and I decided to experiment with making my own.  (Pinterest, how you inspire me!)  So I found this recipe, and got the ingredients (Borax, Washing Soda, and Lemi-Shine).  The first two I could easily find at Winco, the local discount grocery store, but I spent a good two hours driving around trying to find the Lemi-Shine.  When I had checked online, it said the local Walmarts had it in stock, but I couldn't find it at the first one.  And since I was at other stores I asked around, but everyone kept referring me to orange cleaners.  When we finally found it (at a different Walmart), Judith said "Mama, is that the Lemi-Shine?" and proudly carried it up to the checker.  And she pointed it out to Daddy later in the day.  

Anyway, I combined the ingredients as instructed, put the result in a container, and have been quite happy with the washing power of my new detergent.  It is the first time I've used a powdered detergent, so that feels a little strange, but the dishes are certainly getting clean.  That's the main thing.  And it's all natural, and pretty cheap to make.

DIY Liquid Soap (lab)
I was in a DIY mode after the detergent, and noticed this recipe on Pinterest.  I'd just noticed that our three liquid soap dispensers were running low, and was planning to purchase a big refill bottle next week.  For a couple years now I've been buying the gigantic refill bottle and re-filling the small pumps by each sink.  This saves a lot of money over buying new small bottles, but using this DIY recipe, I can control the ingredients, and save even more money!  So when Daddy came home from work on Saturday afternoon, the three of us took a walk to the local CVS (for Glycerin) and to the 99 cent store (for a bar of soap - we got Yardley's English Lavendar).  Then I got out the cheese grater and experimented.  Basically, you melt the soap in the water, add some glycerin, and let it cool.  As a lot of people noted in the comments to the recipe, it looked like skim milk when the melting part was done.  Fortunately, I'd read through all the comments, and I knew that it needed time to gel.  However, I wasn't entirely sure of my success yet, so I didn't start pouring it into bottles or anything, just let it sit on the counter for a couple of hours.  Oh how I wish I'd trusted it!  By about three hours later it had congealed to the consistency of egg white (less charitable comments said "snot"), and like egg white it wanted to stick together!  Getting the soap from the big pot to small bottles (through a small funnel) was not easy!  (I kept thinking how much easier it would have been to pour the "skim milk" in.)  But I persevered!  And used lots of paper towel.  Now I have three full bottles of hand soap that's nearly the same consistency as what I buy (it gelled further overnight), as well as 3 pints of soap to store!  (Anyone need some?)  It smells very nice - not-too-strongly lavender, and it definitely cleans hands.  The only thing that's a little strange about it is the relative lack of suds.  But I learned (again from the comments, as well as from a discussion with Lance, who used to work in his aunt's health food store) that suds are typically caused by things (like Sodium Laurel Sulfate) that are added to the soap by manufacturers, and really aren't necessary for cleaning anyway.  I'm so excited with the success of this experiment!  For about $1.50 (the glycerin cost like $6, but I only used 1T) I made enough liquid soap to last us for a year!

Next experiment:  bubble bath!

The joy
As I know I've said before, I was created to create.  I really enjoy making things.  I take great joy in finding ways to be "greener" and save money at the same time.   And that purple cauliflower?  Oh. Wow.  What beautiful variety God created for us!  

Joy to you!
Barbara

First Day of (Pre) School!

This blog is a little late - I've been busy working on other things :-)

On Monday, Judith started preschool!  It's just an in-home, co-op preschool that we're doing with three other families, but it was still a momentous occasion.  We'll be rotating from house to house and taking turns teaching (my first turn to teach will be on the 27th), and for this first time went to a new house.  I was a little concerned that Judith might be timid in a new place, and with a teacher that she didn't know, but she sure wasn't!  She had such a great time playing with the other kids and participating in story time and doing her craft...I think she'd have been fine if I'd left after the first few minutes.  (I stayed, though, because I don't think my degree in secondary education was much preparation for teaching four three-year-olds, and I wanted to observe.) 

backpack on - ready to go!

circle time

The Joy
Aaaugh...how did my baby get old enough for school?  There is bittersweet joy in watching her grow, especially when she is so independent.  I want her to be independent, but I still miss her dependency.

Joy to You!
Barbara

Crafty Crafty

Sunday afternoon Judith and I worked on two Valentine's Day crafts.  I'm waiting until now to write this post for obvious reasons :-).

Valentine Cards
These were, I think, inspired by something I found on Pinterest, but I can't find it now.  Each card uses a heart (in red) and two long strips of paper (in white), and two hands (in pink).  The hearts and the paper strips were easy, because I decided that I would do them without involving Judith.  Since the strips need to be accordion folded, I folded one large piece of paper, and then cut squares of the resulting "accordion".  I printed "A Valentine's Hug For You" and "I love you this much!" on the strips.  Then I needed to trace Judith's hands.  She was fine for the first four tracings, but after that we had to take a break...and so on until I got all the hands I needed :-).  I traced first in pencil, and then outlined in black sharpie.  Judith got to decorate with crayon and stickers, and then I taped the hands to the "arms" and the "arms" to the heart.  Voila!  A Valentine Card! 

Birdseed hearts
These are definitely a Pinterest find.  Judith's favorite part of making these was stirring...and stirring and stirring.  (That wasn't really called for in the directions, but she wanted to.)  She also got to help me make the hole with the dowel.  Overall they were a very easy craft, if messy.  If/when I make them again (maybe some flower shapes for spring?) I'll do them outside.

stirring

making the hole

finished product - on a "branch"

The Joy
Judith is growing up!  She's learning such independence, and usually can do more than I expect.  And, as I've said before, these were all gifts.  How can there not be joy in giving gifts?

Joy to You,
Barbara