Meals and Planning..

I've given one planner over completely to meal-planning. Maybe it would would better within my 'bullet journal', but I feel like it would take up too much space, unnecessarily. I already have another planner with areas for each meal and a grocery list, a water counter, and the daily readings from Mass. It all fits together so well. 

We read the Mass readings aloud at breakfast, as the start to our school-day, our day is bookended in Scripture, my husband reads aloud at bed time as well. Right now, Isaiah precedes The Wizard of Oz.

Meal planning comes naturally to me, I love doing writing it all down and seeing the week

progress on paper. Living out my plans, is a constant struggle. I'm lazy or distracted, or else I forget entirely to go shopping and my plans are abandoned. But as we transition to a more intentional life, meal planning is essential. I want our meals to mean something, to be times of communion as a family. Acts of hospitality and love. I also need them to be healthy, sustaining, and frugal. All my intentions, existing together demand a primarily plant-based diet. A monastic table, rich in the living things we can grow, harvest, and grow again. 

I'm writing out the coming weeks meal-plans, and to keep track of how we're progressing towards our monastic table..I mark each meal with a notation to indicate vegan, vegetarian, or meaty. Only the meals on Sundays or feast days are meaty, and my goal is that out of the 21 meals in a week, 10 will be without animal products (excluding honey, which seems both penitential and hospitable). It's easier than expected, but writing out goals always is..living them is another thing entirely.

I would love to hear your mealtime goals, and what inspired them! Blessings.

Life Updates

Until this past week, I've neglected this blog for over a year. I've missed writing out my thoughts here, and sharing my life with faraway friends in this way. And with a little bit of extra time know and the fresh motivation a new year brings - I think I'm ready to dive back into blogging!

What have we been doing this past year?

Well, homeschooling is an exciting new adventure! Yarrow and I are working through a blend of kindergarten and first-grade level work. Most of the inspiration and direction in our homeschooling has come from the Charlotte Mason perspective, specifically through it's Catholic interpretation in the Mater Amabilis curriculum. I've edited a bit to fit better with our life and views, but the tone is ideal and the philosophy of learning is so very inspiring! 

We focus a bit more on regular reading of the Bible, poetry, art, and music than the curriculum calls for, and I've adjusted the history reading to focus on Native American, pre-Columbian perspectives for our first term. I'm hoping in the spring to include some interesting perspectives on post-Columbian early America, but still appropriate for a 5 year old. So far we've enjoyed "If you lived with the Iroquois", "All Our Relatives", and "The Discovery of the Americas" - all of these books we read aloud at breakfast, along with the Bible, Sing-a-Song-of-Popcorn (poetry), our current art book, a saint story, and our catechism lesson (we're working with the Faith and Life series). We don't read anything but the Bible every single day, we switch it up. And after breakfast we work on Yarrow's reading practice. She's reading "Harry and The Lady Next Door" right now, and so proud of herself for being 'A Reader.'

Ilya loves the read-alouds in the morning, and during work times he can usually focus for a little while coloring his name, or another word in bubble letters, practicing colors - he adores purple! - and tormenting the dog.

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Along with homeschooling, I'm working on building my own interior life. "Mother Culture" is what Charlotte Mason types call it. I didn't know it had a special name. It seems essential to all people..and so easily neglected by us all as well. 

I have been neglecting mine, but slowly I'm building it back up. 

As we're transitioning to our less consuming way of life, I'm reading Marie Kondo's "life-changing magic" book..or I was, until I lent it out. Now I'm reading "The Joy of Less" and trying to change my direction from someone who constantly buys and purges to someone satisfied with the things she has. Someone attracted to less. It's difficult. I find myself wanting to create a false sense of perfection by getting rid of everything and then buying in all sorts of attractive replacements, instead of being content and patient in the slow work of building my home. It's a challenge!

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And I've contacted a studio that will rent out kiln space to me! Since I still have no where to throw this winter, all that means is that I can fire the bisque-ware that is languishing in my shed. But I can fire them! And perhaps I can get my wheel fixed up, cleaned off, and going again! 

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I read somewhere...and have absorbed the quote, if not the author..that "the gospel is never good news unless it is subversive." 

And with all my notebooks and planners, daily things, schooling, baking, reading, and praying.. that is the end goal. Subversion. To change the world from my own hidden corner of it. That my faith might find it's way up into the sunlight and alter the landscape. It's an exciting goal.

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Where are you in life these days? What has changed since we last connected? What are you doing, and where are you going? I would absolutely love to know.

Novice

The company my husband worked for closed for good this fall. We had planned for a winter without regular work anyway, and now that it's here - with no certain starting date for a regular income in view, we're beginning a new aspect of our homesteading life. Ideally, I would love to avoid the regular work-life for our family in the future. To continue a simpler, more intimate domestic monastery..with my husband painting and drawing, selling his work, and occasionally doing side work building chimneys or painting houses for our neighbors and friends.

But that sort of life takes something I don't have a lot of yet: self-discipline and a love of simplicity. I struggle with those. I still have the suburban-ever-present desire for more, and training myself to want less, to reveal in true simplicity, and not merely the trappings of simplicity is hard. 

I'm working hard to build that inner richness this Advent. My husband is working hard to create beautiful pieces of art and then find homes for them in ways that support our family finances as well. I love watching him work at this! I love seeing the lovely images in his mind take shape on wood and paper. I love having him home, giving him the chance to participate more in schooling Yarrow and shaping our days. And I'm learning to say no to myself. To purge out the unloved things without replacing them. To love discipline, consistency, and not run always toward the new and shiny things of the world. 

It's hard, but the payoff is amazing! A husband who can be home more, creating more, living more. And a healthier soul for me as well. I'm still a novice regarding simplicity. But I do think I'm learning and growing stronger each day. And if you want to help my learning curve at all..my husband's Esty shop is Paperwine Industries. 

Advent

Dying leaves and new beginnings. 

I love Advent. I love new years, new months, new weeks, and new mornings all fresh and bright. But in Advent our mornings are dark - the sun rises late and sets early. Already the sky is streaked with purple.

This autumn has been a time of deep reflection for me, despite my lazy attempts to distract myself with social media and creamy lattes. The trends toward discordance in the world around me are draining and overwhelming..I can feel it influencing my mind and my heart. I see it creeping into my relationships with my children even - I'm less patient with them, my thoughts are elsewhere. 

The day after voting for an acceptable candidate in a sea of hate-filled voices, I began again to reshape my life according to love. As Advent begins I am working to make this life more fully a thing of beauty. I've written our a rule of life for myself, one that pulls to prominence the people I love, the relationships I cherish, the order and ritual I need to thrive. A part of that rule is a sub-rule, a readjustment of my online presence: limiting social media time (my goal is to order my instagram and blogging time to be a peaceful and beautiful contribution to my way of life, while reducing my time on platforms like facebook to brief evening or weekend visits. I have friends there that I do want to keep up with, but the site itself tends to drain my time and interrupt the tangible interactions in life). 


What do I want my time to be filled with? 

I keep breaking this question down into tiny bites of thought. Partially because my children are always biting up my thoughts into tiny pieces with their contributions. Just now, Ilya brought me a painted parasol and my image of time being filled was altered to include the parasol, my sweet boy, and a coffee shop where neither he nor his sister could distract from my writing..possibly with a hazelnut latte beside me. 

Generally though, my responses come in collected impressions: beauty, quiet times, order, simplicity - possibly touched with minimalism, play, conversations late into the night or on lazy mornings with coffee and grapefruits or danish, teaching gently, praying often, sewing, sweeping, reading..slow and simple and gentle.

What do you want your life to look like? To feel like?

How can we make these visions real?

Autumn Beginnings

I've been wanting to return to blogging. But so much is in my way, and not just this little imp:

Though he's amazing at distraction.

More than anything, I'm not blogging because I want to say so much, and it's all so fuzzy in my head, still taking root and growing. I haven't been able to make my thoughts turn into something public yet. But the summer is winding down, autumn is settling in, and I can smell the sharpening air - even through the long-lasting heat. I think my mind is clearing up, focusing more, and turning into something worthwhile again.

I've learned so much this past year, growing this delightful person, birthing him, and seeing the bond between him and his sister. They make my life so rich, I'm almost drowning in the joy of it. And I'm learning how to shape their days into lovely things, I'm reading Laudato Si' and feeling it sink into my heart. I'm shifting again to become more myself. I don't know quite yet where that will take my blogging, but I'm determined to write through it all as it continues.

This morning I have a pile of letters to mail off beside me, two journals, a recipe book, and an empty breve cup. My babies are playing in the sunlight with their daddy, and the ingredients for winter tinctures are scattered through the house. We'll be making a lung-healing oxymel this afternoon, unless I get distracted and forget again. 

I'm drafting posts with more concrete thoughts: on consumerism, on beautiful homes, on building a family village, on daily devotions. I hope they make it beyond the back pages of my journal.

Waiting for Baby...

We're moving into the warmest week of the year so far! I've seen predictions for a week of days above freezing, and I'm hoping desperately that the warm days inspire the baby to come out and greet the world. 

Our house is all cozy and ready to welcome the tiny person who currently spends all his or her time grabbing with tiny hands at the edges of my womb. I imagine him grabbing at all my food, greedily trying to steal the flavor. 

We have flowers out on the altars and tucked under Icons, stock-piled kerosene, propane, and as much wood as we can keep from burning. Seth has been bringing home buckets of clean water to store, and the bathtub is sitting - full and clean - in the center of the of floor..but we won't be having this baby at home, as we'd planned to. Apparently my body is low on platelets..not dangerously low for an in-town birth, but low enough to make the midwives uncomfortable with a deep-in-the-woods, winter-time birth. So we'll be moving the birth to the Birth House and I'm eating a platelet-friendly diet of kale, kale, and more kale until the baby is born. 

I'm disappointed, but not devastated. I wanted a home birth this time, and had such happy images of my home birth..but I'm relieved beyond all telling that I'm still outside the hospital. Hospitals make me uncomfortable, and I worry that I'd have to spend the entire time fighting to avoid excessive interventions. Also, visually, the space is jarring to me and I don't know that I could feel safe enough to labor well in such an institutional environment.

But friends and family have no need to worry..even the hospital midwife we consulted said she'd be comfortable with a home birth at my levels..it's more our location that throws a wrench into things.

All in all it's a decent middle ground..maybe even ideal for this time of year. I always tend the stove at home (it's my own little addiction), and it could be I'd be too distracted by the 'need' to add a log or two to focus on birth. And thanks to weeks of preparation for a home birth, I have an amazingly clean, well-stocked, and beautiful home to bring the baby home to. And thank goodness the birth house doesn't hold us unnecessarily for hours and hours after birth, so home might not be a super cold place to come back to afterwards.

Winter

It's been a long winter..

The days have been cold and stormy, with nothing much to entice us outside. So we've been playing board games, baking, and resenting the weather. 

I'm grateful that this winter, Seth's work has been very casually organized. He can easily stay home on snowy days, keep the road clear, and keep us from worrying about long drives on bad roads. Today he's home again, although the snow wasn't too heavy last night. He's stayed to snowplow and restock firewood with me, and to let me have another massage in town. I've been trying to set on up for weeks, but the weather's been making trouble with that as well.

Yesterday was warmer than usual..20-something and sunny! Yarrow came out with me while I split up some wood and wandered the yard in her snowshoes, while Luba watched and trembled in self-pity. She hates winter more than anyone. As soon as she's out she's begging to come in again. While Yarrow tromped through the snow, threw snowballs, and delighted in the sunlight, Luba sat miserably and resented us all. 

My whole house smells of rosemary and lavender today. I've put some oil in the dragon on the stove, and it's steaming out to make everything fresh. I've got a long list of things to do, but one of them is an afternoon massage, and right after it, acupuncture, so it's a pleasantly restful list. I hope the snow stays away now..and a little more sunlight wouldn't hurt either.

Mardi Gras..

I feel sort of surprised by Lent this year. Maybe because the weather still feels like early January - all deep freezes, blizzards, and ridiculously cold nights. February should be warmer, just a bit. 

But tomorrow we step into the fast - ready or not - and while I'm not feeling 'prepared,' I'm not exactly knocked off balance by it either. I have happy plans for lentil stews, na'an, oranges, and excessive amounts of tea. I don't know if I'll be able to really enjoy black coffee this year. I haven't been able to drink it black at all this pregnancy, and so I'm planning to just switch to tea for the season. Raspberry leaf tea, fenugreek tea, green tea, smokey tea, jasmine tea, and nettle tea..with honey. Honey is always permitted.

Seth stayed home just a little longer this morning to treat Yarrow and I to home-made espresso drinks: a cappuccino for me and a mocha for Yarrow, as well as an americano for himself. It was an ideal start to the day!

I few people have asked if I'll be keeping the fast pregnant and postpartum. I really don't see any reason not to, I mean, the food we fast with is nourishing, warming, healing, and good. I'll be making lots of soup soon, to have in the freezer for directly post-birth, and stocking up on almond and hazelnut milk for my amazing cardamom-saffron milk - which I'm determined to have frothed and steamy by my bedside after labor. But I don't see a need to indulge in meats and things..Lent is still Lent, after all. I'm 'playing it by ear' though. If I feel the overwhelming need for massive quantities of raw, Jersey milk and scrambled eggs..I'll give in. But I expect the soups will satisfy. 

We're expecting snow again for Ash Wednesday. It's possible I'll get no ashes this year. Kind of an appropriately penitential start to the season, really. I'd like to go, but I'm prepared for a long day at home. Computer-less, I'm thinking, because I really ought to deny myself social media for the day. Perhaps Yarrow and I will focus on setting up the altars, offering prayers, and nurturing each other into the fast.

St. Valentine's Eve

This morning is so quiet. Yarrow has gone off to work with Seth, she likes helping him build..she loves mixing the mud and wiping stone and sweeping up. She especially loves dry-wall. I love the beautiful, bonding time she gets to spend with her daddy; and I love the skills she's picking up, and the sense of competency she's gaining. She comes home so very proud of the sanding she's done, or the painting, or the dry-wall patch.

Tonight though, she'll be spending the night at her grandparents..she's been looking forward to a night away, and we're pretty excited about it as well. Especially as she's insisted on bringing Luba. I'm not sure if Yarrow's grandmother will let Luba spend the night, she didn't like the idea when I mentioned it, but an eager little face, asking "Yes please can Baba spend the night with me too, please!" is hard to resist. 

Seth and I are planning to get out for the night. It's supposed to be -11, again, and we've got a couple big storms coming along next week (actually, tomorrow night). So it'd be nice to over-indulge a bit in a hotel room, hot showers, and electricity..and, you know, parental downtime. These storms have been draining for Yarrow as well. She wants desperately to be out and about in them, she loves the snow, but the wind and the cold, cold temperatures keep her venturings out to a minimum.

We're excited about the end of winter! A part from melting snow, warm weather, planting, and general happiness - a tiny plot of land on our road might end up being for sale. If it is, Yarrow's Bushia and Dzia-dzia might scoop it up. I can just imagine Yarrow wandering over for the day, dragging her beloved Luba along, and delighting in the excessive attention. And we, of course, would love their for-certain support in the 'battle of the road'. But everything is uncertain right now, so we're keeping our hopes all hushed up..kind of, in an 'over-sharing-online' sort of way. I can just imagine Yarrow's face though, hearing that Bushia and Dzia-dzia will be right next door. And can come up and stay in the winters as well as summers..without the whole 'can they make it up the hill while visiting' worry. This year we had a last minute (and probably ideally timed) January visit with them. It was horribly cold, but also pretty much the only week between freezing rain, snow storms, and general winter misery. Because the last thing I want to do is say, "Guess what Yarrow, Bushia and Dzia-dzia are here, but you'll just have to settle for calling them because we can't get out, again." That wouldn't go over well at all. 

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Anyway, keep us in your prayers! The midwives come today for our home-visit. We're so excited to be planning a birth in the coziness of our own home. To have no where to go and nothing to do for the first few days after welcoming our baby.

August Ending..

I hadn't really intended to take so long a hiatus. But my goodness, it's been a busy summer! And I didn't want to come back to blogging with a series of serious posts - I wanted to say 'hi' first and chat lightly for a while. 

It's been hard to think about blogging when I've been hiding my head from the news of the world and retreating deeper and deeper into my little monastery. But I'm back, the summer is ending, and it really is time to start writing again in earnest. 

We're preparing for a winter that promises to be at least as cold and harsh as the last one. The chicken coop is being made weather-tight, the duck pen is being built as I write, a hardy, low-roofed little nest for them, with a strong yard, and all under the protection of the big Balsam beside the house. We've almost lost these crazy ducks so many times now, I'm determined to keep them safe and warm through the cold months.

We'll be moving the cook-stove into the yurt this winter as well..in part to have the extra heat, and in part to avoid the misery of going out into the bitter cold to start it up for baking. It'll mean using more wood, but I think it'll be well worth it..and on the very cold nights, when I can't sleep much anyway, I can bake bread in the hot oven!

Seth took some time off work to work for his parents, building a chimney for their addition. Yarrow and I tagged along, and she adored working with her daddy. Seth let her help him mix 'mud' and tap the bricks. She carried bricks to him and moved wood around, and spent hours just 'watching the working guys work'. She was such a happy girl, and asked to be called "outside guy" instead of "Yarrow" while helping Daddy - who was also an "outside guy"..pretty adorable!

Our camera won't focus for me right now, so that's the only photo you get today, but if I can make it work, I'll add more later this weekend! My parents are coming up tomorrow evening, for the last visit of the summer..summer really is over, isn't it! Hopefully, we'll spend the week moving dirt, circling the house with strawbales (for insulation!), and stacking more firewood!

Blessings all!

Quotidian Notes: Promised Warmth and Rebounding

I'm still recovering from the 7 days of blogging we did last week..as well as recovering from a return to normal schedule this week - I miss vacation! I miss having Seth home all day. Our goal for next winter is to actually take the whole winter off: Christmas through March. I'm determined to do it right this year.

Yarrow's Altar

It's 9 am and I'm only on my second cup of coffee - I consider that a win! But the Fast didn't begin well for me this year at all..Wednesday was not the delightfully focused and holy day I'd hoped for (all my own fault, really). I started back on focused Lent yesterday. Not with perfection, but with all the right steps. The house was clean, the altar refreshed, Yarrow and I started our Lenten Prayer time together, and I began to feel connected to the fast. I think it'll be a good season after all..a hard season - I've been too indulgent for too long; but a good and holy season, focused on love. 

It is a retreat season for me. A quiet time of reflection. But reflection and quite are a little too indulgent for me this season - so as I focus on love this Lent, I'll also be focusing on reaching out more to those I love. It would be so easy for me to stay tucked away with Seth and Yarrow and Luba..writing to dear friends occasionally and forgetting the world around me. But I'm to be in the world, unfortunately, and that calls me to reach out. So I'm searching for a balance. A way to live this worldly monasticism I need - avoid creating the hermitage I crave and step out sometimes. So we'll be writing more letters, Yarrow and I; walking down the road when the weather allows it; calling family and those poor, neglected friends of mine; and working into our prayer time a special time for her best-loved friends. We have a rock on her tiny altar from my sister and her husband. Yarrow loves it - she holds it and we pray for Ciocia Laura and Wujek Charles - we nestle their rock between Christ and His Mother, light a candle, and let them rest in Love.

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The Virgin is primary this Lent. I've devoted my year to her, and still I'm surprised at how she infuses herself. I've moved the family Icon to a more primary place on the altar. Today Petka and I will write out paper prayers to tuck around her like tiny birds. I'd love to add your intentions, if you'd like to share them. 

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I've finished my second cup - it's sort of devastating. I'm trying to keep to two cups a day. It's time to switch back to tea. I started the day with a small pot of Tulsi tea..holy basil..it is supposed to be energizing. Coffee is energizing. Tulsi is very nice though. Very fresh.

Is is wrong that I was thrilled to discover my Raw Jersey Cream would be unavailable throughout Lent (it's the slow season at the farm). No one can have it. I'm feeling impiously smug about the forced lenten fast for all Raw Cream addicts. I know it's wrong, but I am glad.

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Today is a fasting day. We've had oatmeal with honey, pumpkin seeds, flax seed, and dried apricots - it's decadent for a fast day, but it has to last until supper. I fill up on tea instead - shooting covetous glances at the pot of soup from last night: Red lentils and curry, coconut milk, cinnamon, garlic. Na'an without oil so Seth can take it for lunch today. Rhythm is a gift. I'm more aware of the time. I know the day: Fridays belong to Paraskeva. We will leave her the small na'an Yarrow rolled out last night - lumpy and hard, but full of confident love.

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My Lenten series on Modesty begins this Tuesday! I'm really looking forward to absorbing the wisdom of the women around, opening up conversations, and growing together. Thanks for joining me in it!