Thanksgiving 2010

One Turkey. Ten Sides. We don't believe in restraint when it comes to our Thanksgiving meal. *grinz*

Wonderful adaptation to our favorite recipes - Add whiskey to the gravy pan and white wine to the stuffing. Nothing like adding a little spirit into the spirit of Thanksgiving.

Mary's Birthday

Today we baked a cake for Mary's birthday which falls on September 8th.

*pat* *pat* me on the back for being on top of things. I had selected the cake recipe two weeks ago and had all the ingredients on hand.

Yes. *pat* *pat*

This is the part where God smites me with humility.

Six and three-quarter cup of flour is not the same as six and three-quarter ounce.

But that's okay, the kids now have a large pan of sandscape to play with.



Onto Cake Generation 2.

My suspicion should have been raised when I read "slowly whisk in the entire can of condensed milk". Really? The entire can? Now I enjoy my condensed milky goodness as much as the next gal. In fact, I have fond memories of stirring little teaspoons full into my oatmeal as a child. But the entire can?

I re-checked my recipe. I'm not making the same mistake twice. Yup! Apparently, Americans like this gooey whiteness too.

We sang the birthday song. Twice. Once in English and once in Chinese.


Verdict?

We ate only the frosting. The cake itself was left mostly untouched even by my sweetest kid.

And all the while, my twins kept repeating "Yummy Cake!!" while they made little dredges.

Joy and Keeping Them Close

I'm revisiting parenting advice that has stayed with me through the years. One of first comes from Bridget from Our Magnum Opus in this thread over at the 4real forum.

This is something I worked very hard on this past year. Each morning I made a fresh resolution to use a pleasent voice and smile at each child. I made an effort to make eye contact with the older chiildren and laugh together over silly things, usually the younger children's antics.

I made myself sit down and rock little kids even when ten other things were screaming at me to be done. This was so difficult for me!

First time obedience and cheerful attitudes became my discipline mantra. Once I became consistant at enforcing it, I found that I rarely had to discipline.

And further down the thread....

Two years ago I reallized that how I was disciplining wasn't working. My most common phrase was 'go play now', I was quick to swat and holler as a reaction to something a child did, and my children were not internalizing self control. I often sent them to their rooms for a time out. All this fostered resentment in my children.

Now i have them near me much of the time. We do chores together, school work together, just hang out together. I had to work hard mentally to enjoy their constant company. I do enjoy it naturally now. We make every effort to bond with them through prayer time, work and fun.

By being with them I can head off a problem before it is really a problem. If an argument is starting I can ask a question about the situation that can change it to a discussion and they can figure it out without squabbling.

I can redirect, I often have them 'do it over'. If someone walks away sulkily, I have them come back and do it again with the right attitude. We use 'do overs' often for cheerful attitude practice.

With the older 3, ages 8. 10 and 12, I would fall over in shock if they were outright disobedient or disrespectful to me or their dad. The biggest problem is arguing with each other. When they have problems with each other, the child with the problems has to stay by me. We talk about how to handle the problem better. Maybe some role playing, if I'm really on top of things. I put the child to work, assign push ups and sit ups, anything that helps them change their direction. Sometimes I have to pull out the BIG GUNS. I call Dad.

With Dad, they are quick to suck in their gut, stand at attention, get a job... say 'yes sir, right away sir'! OK, it not quite that military, but it amazes me how easily they respond to his leadership.

With the younger children we do spank. If they are not obedient the first time, they will get a swat on the rear. Of course, I make sure they are capable of following the direction before i give it. I try not to give a direction if I can't get up and enforce it.

If I am swatting often, I know that I'm not with them enough. I need to be with them to see a problem coming and to make sure I set them up for success. The swat should be reminder that mom and dad are the authority, not a punishment. We swat calmly and early, before everyone is all bent out of shape with the situation.

I know some people have success without swatting. We don't. The problem may be with us, not the method. I'm dealing with some wild Scottish blood here. We have found that if we are firm and consistant early, we have fewer problems later.

I know this is getting long, sorry. Two more thoughts. Our children will never be perfect (neither are we), they need parents, so our job is never really done and we won't see the fruits of our labors for many years, although we see glimmers.

The Bible and the Catechism are clear that children must obey their parents and by learning to obey their parents, they are learning to obey God himself.

Whew, now if I could just remember my own advice all the time! When I get lax or too busy, I can see it quickly in the children's behavior. When I am mothering this way, family life generally goes so well and is such a joy. These practices work well for us.

In Pursuit of Feminine Beauty

Latey, I've been reading extensively from these two blogs Charming the Birds from the Trees and Betty Beguiles. I love Charming's thoughts on beauty for herself, her home and family. Betty shows me that feminity can be strong, provocative and modest.

I find that there is a strong need for me to improve in my feminine beauty. It re-enforces to yourself that you are indeed worth the extra effort. When you are well put-together, it's help puts you in the mindset that the day will continue forth with as much care and reverance. And truthfully, even my kids respond to me differently, carressing my hair gently as they coo about how beautiful their mother is. I love to give them that memory of their mother.

A few things that I have done for the pursuit of feminine beauty:

• Throw out frumpy clothes for example sweats, clothes with stains or holes
• When I need new bottoms, I purchase skirts. They inherently look more polished though I do wear jeans and cargos.
• Instill a daily regime. I don't wear make-up or blow-dry my hair so it's even more important that the basics are taken of. For my face, I wash with either a daily scrub or basic facial soap followed by moisturizer with sun-screen. As for my hair, it air-dries with strategically placed clips and a leave-in conditioner. If that fails, there is always the pony-tail. And I always, always moisturize my body. Expensive products are not necessary. I'm a L'Oreal, Pantene and Cetaphil kinda gal!
• Instill a weekly routine. Included in my weekly cleaning routine is spa time. It includes a facial mask, plucking my eyebrows, nail care, a body scrub and healthy dose of moisturizer. Speaking of which, I should add back in my homemade hair mask.

A few things that I'm going to try for:

• Get fit. Fit and healthy people just generally look better.
• Spruce up my wardrobe with a few dressier items like tops, pencil skirts, heels and handbags. Emily has a good guideline for wardrobe staples.
• Wear accessories to weekend Mass and other special occasions.
• Get haircuts more regularly.
• Figure out how to do my hair for special occasions.

Trinity Sunday

A three-leaf clover made out of beeswax in honor of this year's Trinity Sunday.

Baking Day

For this week's baking day, we had two types of scones, chocolate chip cookies, "Wonder Bread" and shaped dinner rolls. We are trying out different recipes in hopes to create a master cheat sheet inspired by Kimberlee.

The dinner rolls recipe is from Mitten Strings for God by Katrina Kenison. She calls it "Pretzel Shapes". I call it the miracle edible playdoh! Despite four hours of pounding, molding and genuine abuse with no rise time, the bread rolls are still tender and soft. A most forgivable recipe that has earned a place in our cheat sheet!

Pentecost

In medieval times, families in many parts of Europe would suspend a carved and painted wooden dove over their dining table. Such a custom could be easily revived for the throughout the Octave of the Pentecost -- and imagine that dining room table covered with a white tablecloth, sprinkled with red rose petals, and with a vase of columbine at its center.

Source - Fisheaters website

Monday Wash Day

Or our version thereof.

The Beginnings of Our "New" Seasonal Table

A dish that was a wedding present to hold our nature finds.

A frame to hold my favorite art prints from Carl Larsson.

A statue of Mary with her belated crown that never did make to the garden after all these years. *smilez*

Seasonal Produce

I found this very helpful website which lists seasonal produce bimonthly. Coming from a tropical island makes seasonal eating a foreign concept. *laughs* I'm appreciative of sites like this which organizes by state to help frequent movers like myself.

For simplicity sake, I tend to eat my fruits raw and my vegetable stir-fried unless of course it's a salad. *grinz* I do schedule more elaborate seasonal recipes on holidays like strawberry shortcakes on Mother's Day and blueberry cobbler on 4th of July. I can't wait for grilled corn season! Delish!

Rhythm of the Home

Rhythm of the Home is an inspiring quarterly online magazine to help families to celebrate the seasons and all its goodness. Do check it out.

Pondering these Questions

Note the rising and sleeping times for each member of your family.

What are the typical Rising Habits of the Household? Who does what and what is needed to be done?

What are the typical Eating Habits of the Household? When do we eat, how do we decide what we eat, who cooks it, how and where it is served, and who cleans up?

How is the cleaning of our home accomplished? Who decides, what is cleaned, when are the areas cleaned, who is in charge of what cleaning in the home, and how is our attitude as we clean our home?

What does our family do when there is free time? How do we spend our own time, how do we act when we are together? What are the free times in our home?

What role does peer pressure play in our home? Do our cousins, best friends, neighbors, relatives insist on giving us modern plastic junk or abhorrent play items that we need to toss? Can we resist these influences and try to perhaps avoid them, i.e., not getting the latest plastic toy catalog out on the front table, turn away from commercials, and move away from the wanna-be places.

Do the adults work at home? How much time do the adults spend in front of screens? Or on the Phone? Are there limits in place at this time for adults spending time in front of screens in the home?

How does nature figure into our lives? How often do we go outdoors? When do we all go outdoors? How about the extended family? Do the children have experiences outdoors that address various needs: exercise or sports, camping or hiking, exploring or harvesting? Farming? Gardening? Cleaning, yard work, animals?

How is the speech in the home? What are the conversations like? How about the tone of voice, the time spent with one another, around the dinner table, at bed time, are there stories, is there music in the home? Do adults take time to talk with the children, to listen, and share, to wonder? What do we hear in our home?

What do we see in our home? Is there color? Is there harmony? Is there a place for everything so we all know where things go? Can we clean our entire home in less than 2 hours including picking up, sweeping and washing floors, vacuuming, bathrooms, and changing beds? Does the home lend itself to our possessions and material goods?

How is the feeling life in the home? Does love abound? Is there peacefulness mixed with the natural energy of children? Do we get things done? Is there dissension or argument or negativity? Are we polite and kind? How are our manners? Do we model these behaviors with please and thank you, yes I would like to, and yes I am happy to help you and so on?

Are there will forces present? Does thoughtfulness reign? Can the community of your home rise to the occasion and work together to accomplish tasks or goals?

Is there joy in the home? Do we delight in one another? Are we valued and appreciated? Do we laugh out loud? Does someone know a joke? Are there smiles on faces some of the time? Can we empathize? Do we have sympathy for others, down and out, can we help others in the community and care for the poor?

Finally, do the adults in the home agree on the style of schooling? Is there a united parenting front? Are parents at odds with one another or can they come to support one another and especially in front of the child(ren)? Certainly individuals are important, we are not twins, but can we see another point of view and withhold criticism?

- How to do the Waldorf Homeschool, Marsha Johnson

Scenes from the Kitchen

Yum! is an accurate name for this delicious cinnabun from Kimberlee! I didn't have confectioner sugar to make the frosting which my sons insist is a key ingredient for this tasty morsel! Nevertheless, it didn't stop them for wolfing everything down. *grinz*


For our weekly Liturgical Craft, we repeated Easter Egg decorations. This time we used a glitter egg kit which is vastly different from the sticker egg kit from last week. *lol* It makes afternoon tea snacks of boiled eggs such a special treat!

Gotta love the Catholic Church's tradition of celebrating Easter for 50 days! When all the Easter decorations are 70% off, we can leisurely enjoy our Easter season instead of cramming everything in on Easter Sunday. :)

Weekly Cleaning List

We have just spent the week getting into the grove of our daily routine. It's similar in nature to that outlined in Mother's Rule of Life and Flylady. So today, I dust out our monthly routine. I really like Martha Stewart's version and have transcribed them in an excel workbook. I've added four columns next to each task for every week. I check off each task as I go along. I've also modified the list by repeating categories for rooms with similar functions. For example, instead of simply Bedrooms, I have Master Bedroom, Boys Bedroom and Girls Bedroom. I suppose this might go against my simple philosophy but with my pregnant brain, I can forget simple things like take out trash and brush the toddlers' teeth. :) Maybe in a month, I'll be ready to tackle the Monthly Cleaning List. Oh, and this is a huge dream, I'll actually get to the Seasonal Cleaning List, Preparing Your Home for Summer list, Prepare Your Home for Winter list. Although truthfully, I don't do half of the suggestions on the list because I don't have that much stuff to clean. *grinz* The beauty of decluttering!

Hello from the other side!

We made it! It was an interesting ride for sure since our trailer was wagging left and right like a fish tail throughout the move. But we made it! And more importantly we are completely unpacked! In four days! A world record for us for sure! Woo hoo! I must admit I did cheat. I threw out even more stuff on this end including several bags for charity. It's what happens when you have minimalism on your mind and suddenly things don't warrant the effort to find a new home.

I've taken into account Zen Habit's guidelines to have the floor cleared. Checked. And for the first time ever - All top surfaces are cleared too! It's going to be amazing tomorrow when we clean this place. Imagine nothing to lift up to dust or wipe down. And I've taken the liberty of only hanging up our one liturgical display. Our walls are bare and we are relishing it. It feels like a wide ocean only beige. It's beautiful. It's serene. It's home.

Peace

h

These homes brings me peace.

What Worked - Minimized Planning

Last summer, I read a life-changing book. I was particularly fascinated with one of its messages to do more and plan less. I've applied it to some aspect of my life and I'm convinced of its validity.

Minimized Planning in the Kitchen

For breakfast and lunch, I have a specific type of meal for each day. So on Mondays, we have scrabbled eggs and toast for breakfast and spaghetti with meat sauce for lunch. I have a breakfast pantry and a lunch pantry. These items can be mixed and matched to create the meals that most of my kids like. :) My breakfast pantry consist of eggs, milk, cheerios, oatmeal, bread, hot dogs, flour, butter, honey, yogurt and seven days worth of fruit. My lunch pantry consist of pasta, marinara sauce, Alfredo sauce, Chinese noodles, sesame oil, oyster sauce, ground meat, frozen mixed vegetables, frozen pizza and dinner leftovers. :) For dinner, I buy seven meals worth of meat, vegetables and serve them with rice. I don't think about what I want to do with them. I simply try to buy a variety of types and cuts. I do have a pantry of dinner seasonings and flavorings. The night before I simply grab a portion of meat from the freezer and mentally think of its preparation - grilled, stir-fry, baked or stew and the basic ethnic theme I want to go for. So say I grab some chicken and think stew! I could do Oriental and add soy sauce, cinnamon stick and star anise. I could do Italian and add canned tomatoes, basil and oregano. I wing the proportions. Sometimes I need inspiration and I go to Allrecipes, Ina Garten or my cookbooks. Sticking to the minimalist theme, I do not have a large collection of cookbooks. My husband jokes that I never cook the same meal twice. And this was back when I did plan out our meals extensively. So now, I just scribble the recipe on scrap paper and throw it out when the meal is done.

Minimized Planning in the School Room

Beginning the school year, I list the core subjects that we are to cover - reading, writing, math, Chinese and fine arts. Beside each subject, I list the resource I will use. This is where I use great restraint. What I do not do :-

• I do not intentionally cover more than my core subjects.
• I do not list more than one resource. Yes, there is no perfect curriculum or book list but I limit my choice to only one. I figured that if I finish with that one resource and have finished all other subject, I can pick up the supplementary resource later in the year. So for example a lot of people I know mixes Story of the World and Connecting with History. Side note: I have not used either programs. So if I were to cover world history this year, I would choose between one of the programs. Should I finish Volume 1 in either resource, I might consider repeating Ancient History with the other program. This forces me to choose the program that is better suited for my needs, reduces my time planning to combine program and naturally re-enforce repetition in the subject.
• I do not have daily plans. Most of my resources are straight-forward and require little preparation time. We simply do one lesson a day and move to the next tomorrow. The same with reading lists. If the reading list is already in a theme format, great. Otherwise, I don't bother to compile thematic studies.

The Minimalist Life

I've always enjoyed Cheryl's journey towards simplicity. Now she's started a new blog to focus exclusively on this topic and already it has some wonderful insights. I'm already familiar with Leo Babauta .

Yesterday, my husband and I regretfully realized that we couldn't haul everything we had in one trip. As we price the different moving options, we wonder whether our stuff is really worth the thousand odd dollars moving cost. Truthfully, no. I feel frustrated because I've stopped the "bleeding" as outlined by Babauta for three odd years.

1. Stop buying unnecessary things. This step was important for me as I was trying to get out of a mountain of debt (achieved, btw). Only buy the necessities, and always ask yourself: is this truly necessary? Stop the bleeding first.

I've decluttered and decluttered and yet it's still too much. It's frustrating to say the least. I want to remind myself that decluttering takes time. The first time you go through it you throw out the obvious. With the obvious gone, the less obvious becomes obvious. And so it goes again and again.

Since the move is around the corner, I don't have time to ponder our family needs while I pack. However, I feel like when I unpack on the other side, I want to think about what is the bare minimum we need to have in order to be happy and functional. Of course as I write this, I realize it would probably be a process just like the above - when you have lived with your bare minimum for a while, you realize that you could possibly live with even less. *laughs* In the meantime, I'm grateful the flood destroyed some things making it a no brainer to downsize even more.

Help Yourself Breakfast Ideas

This past week at the hotel's breakfast buffet has been most relaxing. There is something to be said about asking kids to simply help yourself to their food. I thought to record some simple ideas so that I could try to replicate this experience at home.

Help Yourself Breakfast Ideas
Breads - Plain, Bagel, Croissant, Muffins
Spreads - Jam, Butter, Cream Cheese
Cereals - Oatmeal, Museli, Granola, Boxed cereal
Fruit
Yogurt
Boiled egg
Cheese and sliced meat
Drinks - Milk, Chocolate milk, Juice, Hot Chocolate

I'm thinking if I allocate a shelf on my refrigerator for breakfast items, lined nicely, and perhaps a basket or pantry shelf for breakfast items, I can simply say "help yourself". Now won't that be nice?

Letting go.

It's time to let go. Of stuff that is. We cannot fit comfortably otherwise. And I'm tired of holding on to "what-ifs". And so these were what was running through my mind as I chucked, chucked and chucked!

1) Why have two when one would do?

2) Think tithing, not throwing away.

3) We don't want to raise spoiled children who needs a lot of stuff to pass time.

4) It should only take a short time to pick-up around the house for that surprise guest.

5) Storage is overrated. Think very, very hard about storing things. As the Chinese believe, clutter, even hidden, still affects the peace of our minds.

6) Live for the present. Never for the distant possibility.