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 Homeschooling

Art plans and assemblage project

Our unschooling friend Theresa has some pretty cool art history plans and projects for this homeschool year for her daughter.  They have been fun to follow and are hugely inspiring.  Do follow this link to see how the first project turned out....it is pretty cool.

Here is the list of artists that they are planning to study this year:

• Louise Nevelson
• Marc Chagall
• Pablo Picasso
• Alexander Calder
• August Rodin
• F. Hundertwasser
• Rene Magritte
• Alberto Giacometti
• Vincent Van Gogh
• Leonardo DaVinci

Folk Art

• Jean Debuffet*
• Jerome Couelle*
• Alexandro Farto*
• Lisa Kokin*
• Slinkachu*
• Huichol Nierikas* (not an artist, a style of Mexican folk art)

Her second assemblage project is pretty cool....check it out!

See her Marc Chagall bulletin board here.  Clever idea, that board.

See her Rene Mangritte study ideas here.......I wonder how they turned out? Theresa?



Year End Pictures and Interviews

Wow!  What a great idea!  I wish I had seen this about 15 years ago. 

I am not sure how I ended up at Amber's blog.......but I really like it.  In this post, she shares how she takes photos, makes a list of what her kids accomplished in the past year, and "interviews" them, placing their responses on the pictures themselves.  Looks fabulous!  Do go see this.....and plan to be inspired.  :)

Apparently she gives credit to Sarah, who is often linked from TUAR, for this idea. See Sarah's End of Year blog post and prepare to be even more inspired........


Health & Fitness

Chocolate craving comes from total sensory pleasure

Yeah. We already know that chocolate is a necessary food group.  Right?

An excerpt from the article:


"It's difficult to tease apart which chemicals may be contributing to which psychological functions. There are over 500 chemicals in consumer chocolate products, so there's a lifetime of chemical analysis still to be done," says Prof Wilson.

His hunch is that the "almost seductive" texture of chocolate is as important as its ingredients.

Dr Barry Smith, director of the Centre for the Study of the Senses at Birkbeck University of London, agrees.

He says the combination of the smoothness and creaminess of chocolate in the mouth, the sweetness of the taste - boosted by vanilla flavouring - and the smell of it before it even hits the taste buds make chocolate-eating a hugely pleasurable experience."


My Catholic Faith

Our Easter Mantel

Something to think about for next Easter.  I really like the idea of using chalkboard paint on that silver tray........and those cute little eggs.

Doctor keeps medical practice in line with Catholic teaching

This is so uplifting.  I am so glad to know about a Catholic doctor out there in the world, doing the right things.


You Were Not Made for Comfort…

This is a wonderful little nugget of a post reminding us:

“The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” 

These are words of wisdom from Pope Benedict XVI. 

Take them to heart. 

Share them with your children and friends. 

Remember them during the big and especially, the little  sufferings.


And offer those sufferings up to God as a gift!

Parenting

 

14 Ways for Dads to be Engaged with their Breastfed Babes


As a childbirth educator and obstetrics RN, for the last twenty-some years, I cannot tell you how many times I have been told that dad will feel left out if he doesn't get to feed the baby.

And this absolutely drives me crazy........if dad's were meant to feed the baby......well, he would be able to breastfeed.  But his body does not do that.  God, in His wisdom, has determined that the mother will be the primary source of nutrition for the baby.

Sometimes it's just the mom who is feeling guilty because she gets to hold the baby all of the time.....the dad isn't even interested.  And sometimes, the fathers, especially the young ones, are putting pressure on the mother to teach the baby to take a bottle as soon as possible so dad can have some of the fun. 

I teach over and over:  dads have many other ways that they can bond with baby....and to help make the wee one smarter simply by bonding in the unique ways that a dad has.

I tell them to avoid using the small baby tub that makes babies cry because they are cold and wet.......and put dad into a bathtub, submerge baby to neck.....baby who is usually happy to be floating in the womb-like warmth.......and now mom has four hands to bathe the slippery baby.  And after baby has been cleaned, dad and babe can stay longer in tub for bonding while mom gets a few well-earned moments to herself, even if it is just doing dishes.  :)

I love the advice on this blog post.......just might print it up for my clients to read.

Food

Recipe: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

These cookie bars look really yummy.  And easy.  Let's try them!!!  Willa, I bet Aidan would love to help you.....make them and eat them! 


Tips---Ingredient Substitutions



A Happy Home Life


10 Simple Things to Make You Happier at Home

 

Colored Dots in the Pantry, and Other Things LIke That

 On Household Things --  I am still loosely following Motivated Moms and Flylady, but I found a way to make progress on the house that is even simpler.   It is something like Brandy's Cleaning Loop Schedule.   I simply spend 5 minutes a day in several different areas of my house.   We have a fairly large house built on an open plan and when I add up all the different rooms and areas I come up with somewhere between 15 and 20.   I couldn't visit all of them every day without spending a couple of hours on housekeeping, but I visit the high traffic zones and then usually a couple of other areas.    I just do whatever seems to most need doing in that particular room.  For example, in the bathrooms (the cleaning of which I need to revisit 3 or more times during the week) I can quickly tidy a basket, swish the toilet and wipe the counter.   It's surprising how much better an area can look after those five minutes.  

Something that I am just starting to work through is having a project going in different parts of the house based on Flylady's zones.   For example, last week was the kitchen.    My husband has been mentioning that when the kids put away the groceries in the walk-in pantry, they are out of order -- mostly because my younger two now help with the unloading and they weren't taught, like the older ones, what areas to put things in.

So last week I organized the pantry and used the labeling dots you can buy at the dollar store to mark all the cans by expiration date.    Now we can see at a glance which pantry food items to use first.    This is the kind of thing I sort of enjoy doing but rarely get around to because there are more urgent things to get done.  That's why I like the "ongoing project" idea because it's not time-dependent and I can fit it into little pockets of the day -- like while waiting for the water to boil in a pot, times like that.

You will notice that I haven't mentioned the kids in this description of daily cleaning.   That is because we are in transition (which seems to have been the case for a few years now as kids grow up, move out etc).    Only 2 of my kids are under 18 now.    One of them, Aidan, loves to take on new household responsibilities.   He collects all the trash and recyclables, brings the bins out to the curb, brings them back to the garage, etc.   He does most of the laundry except for putting in the detergent and putting clothes away.      There are quite a few other things he does either assisting me or on his own.   He's retained that preschool trait of wanting to be involved in every project that's happening, but since he is a teenager and quite tall and strong now, he can actually help with the fun things like making coffee and chopping vegetables and building shelves.

Paddy is the other adolescent in the house and as the youngest child of seven and 16 years younger than his oldest brother, he never quite got phased into the chore system the way the others did.   He is also more conceptual and less hands-on than Aidan is.  This summer I am focusing on getting him in the habit of doing more around the house.   He has a few responsibilities but they aren't quite as extensive as those the older kids had at his age, partly because I often end up more or less cleaning as I go so it's harder to plan specific jobs for him to do, and when I do need help, I often call on one of the big kids because they are taller and stronger and know how to do more already.   But very soon they are going to be gone and Paddy needs to have the opportunity to do more.      I say opportunity because even though he probably won't exactly jump for joy when called upon to sweep or unload the dishwasher or troubleshoot the computer or lug laundry baskets, he will probably enjoy having the experience under his belt, because right now his older brothers give him a hard time for being responsible for less than they were at his age (though their memories are sort of biased....)

Strawberries and Habits

"The strawberry in medieval art was seen, because of its many seeds, as a symbol of the fruitfulness of good works. Just as the generous seeds of a strawberry cannot be counted easily, so too would be the generous acts of the fruitful Christian."   Father James M Sullivan, OP, in July 2014 Magnificat.  

This struck me today in my morning devotional reading, partly because we have a lot of strawberries in our house right now and I just cut up and froze a batch of them for future smoothies for the kids .  I looked it up online, but typing in "strawberry medieval art" brought up some weird results.    I did find this Signs and Symbols site which looks traditional and solid -- it has this to say:

The strawberry is the symbol of perfect righteousness, or the emblem of the righteous man whose fruits are good works. When shown with other fruits and flowers, it represents the good works of the righteous or the fruits of the Holy Spirit. It is in line with this meaning that the Virgin is sometimes shown clad in a dress decorated with clusters of strawberries because is the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. The strawberry is occasionally shown accompanied by violets to suggest that the truly spiritual are always humble.

One of the reasons that this struck me besides our present abundance of them, was that I have been reading a lot of books about habits.  

In The Power of Habits, Charles Duhigg talks about keystone habits, which can set up chain reactions that can make a huge difference even on a wide level.   A couple of other books I am reading, Mini-Habits and Habit Stacking, build on this idea that even very small changes can add up to a real shift in momentum.   The idea of the strawberry with all its small seeds in the devotional seemed to me to correspond to the idea of keystone or mini-habits and their power.  

This article talks about 3 keystone habits that Jesus set, customarily remembered during the readings of early Lent.    This article talks about keystone habits in evangelism and catechesis.    When I think about it, many papal exhortations, not to mention the pastor's homilies at weekly mass, contain some take-away message or advice that could add up to one of the small seeds on a strawberry's surface -- that is, if you took it seriously and tried to apply it during the week, just one or two could be a life-changer.

(I tend to forget what the homily was about the moment it is over, I admit in shame -- I don't do well remembering things I've heard especially in a crowd of people -- too many distractions).

I think perhaps the resolutions we are supposed to formulate at the end of mental prayer add up to cultivating the symbolic seeds on the surface of the strawberry, as well.   This article How to Practice Mental Prayer says of resolutions:

before concluding the meditation, we should make some specified good resolution, appropriate as far as possible to the subject of our meditation. This resolution should be directed to the shunning of some sin, or of some occasion of sin, to the correction of some defect, or to the practice of some act of virtue during the day.

I always have trouble making resolutions that correspond with the topic of my prayers, but perhaps thinking of them as small but key habits -- even mini-habits , which are modest and doable but open the door to bigger things --  would be a good start.

As far as specifics go, recently canonized Pope John XXIII has a daily decalogue which adds up to a sort of litany of mini-habits.     They could be thought of as a few seeds on the strawberry which with the increase provided by the Holy Spirit could potentially grow into a whole orchard of good fruit.

January Personal Eating Plan

Mystie at Simple Pantry Cooking did a Whole18 version of Whole30.   If you want to go back to the beginning, the simplest way is probably to track backwards using the links within the posts.   I love her food photos.   They make me want to run to the kitchen and start chopping up vegetables.  And that usually is something not on my most fun list of things to do.  

She summed up her normal eating in this post,  My Personal Eating Plan , and invited others to join in.  So here goes, my very cursory experience with Whole 30 and what my food plan looks like right now.

Feeling logged down by carbs in early January, after the goodies associated with the Christmas holidays, I happened to see this thread:  Low carb diet for weight loss at the 4Real forum.   It pulled me in because I almost could have written the original poster's question.

 I also am over 50, nearing menopause, and finding I can't take my food habits for granted any more.    My parents both were slim pretty much throughout life, but 3 out of 4 grandparents were stout and most of my aunts (I don't have any uncles by blood) were or are also overweight.   My brothers and I seem to be in the middle -- we aren't really overweight but if we don't watch it we start putting on extra pounds, especially as we reach middle age.  

I had never heard of Whole30 before.  I have seen many mentions of Paleo but haven't researched any further.    From what I understand, Whole30 is a detox version of Paleo.   You can find PDFs of their foods to eat and foods to avoid here.  

Basically you are supposed to avoid all sugars, all grains, all alcohol, all dairy, and all beans; plus ideally, avoid chemical additives to meats and artifically raised livestock or eggs.   No potatoes, either.   I think the idea is that all these things became staples later than the Paleolithic "caveman" days of hunters/gatherers.   Things that you can potentially gather in the wilderness or bring down with a spear are OK, though I think there is a bit of wiggle room for livestock and coconut oils and that kind of thing. 

I liked the idea of trying a modified version of this regimen because last time I effectively lost weight, about 4 years ago, it was with a version of Atkins low-carb.  I did a 2-week jumpstart of Atkins -- they call it Phase 1 - with basically no carbs, and I almost died.  Not literally but I felt like a zombie, lumbering around listlessly with graveyard breath and no working brain cells, let alone emotions besides dull determination.   Very like a zombie now that I think about it.  Still, when I added back a few whole-carbs I felt great and I lost 20 pounds without even trying hard.   I have never been able to do that since.    

Whole30 actually sounded easier to me than Atkins, because you don't have to worry about high vs low-glycemic vegetables, or avoid all fruits, etc.     I am not very interested in the hunter/gatherer evolutionary fitness argument, because people did fine throughout history living mostly on bread and wine and olive oil and smoked fishes and that type of thing.   Our society didn't start having terrible trouble with food until they started putting corn syrup in everything and stripping whole grains of all their nutrients.  

But I do think that when I eat too many carbs my system gets sort of turned towards craving even more.   And I start getting depressed and lower in energy.  And that happens especially during holiday seasons. 

So I started a modified Whole30.   I wanted modified because I knew I didn't want to worry about nitrites in meat, or potential sugars in sauces, or buying organic everything.      I just wanted to clean up my food patterns, not perfect them.    The 80/20 Rule applies here.  

My favorite "sensible" type eating plan is the NoS Plan, so I decided I was basically just going to ramp up the NoS and combine it with Whole30.  I would avoid beans and dairy and grains (at least, for the most part), but I wouldn't give up alcohol, and I would let myself off the dietary hook from Saturday vigil mass to Sunday afternoon.   

When I experimented with NoS earlier this year I found that allowing Saturday and Sunday as "off" days pulled me off my "good" weekday habits, and I am accustomed to Saturday-vigil relaxations of Lent after years of programming, so it is actually easier to limit "S" time to 24 hours rather than 48. 

I also decided I wouldn't keep a food diary, and I wouldn't weigh myself until February (that is one of the rules of Whole30, and I liked the idea, because then I could focus on how I feel and act and how my jeans fit rather than on numbers -- I have a tendency to get obsessed with scale numbers).

I wouldn't count calories, trusting to the bulk of the fruits and vegetables, and the satisfying nature of proteins and natural fats, to moderate my appetite. 

I know this is not how Whole30 is "supposed" to be done, and if I were either almost already Practically Perfect in my diet, or dealing with huge diet-related problems, I would probably commit to being more strict, but I thought of this as a Trial Run 30, or a Half-Hearted 30.  

With all these qualifications, the regimen has been working quite well for me.   I have way more energy than I did.   I crave vegetables rather than Little Debbie Swiss Rolls.    My jeans seem to fit better.   I love not worrying about the numbers on the scale.

I still have the mid-afternoon slump that Mystie mentions, but this is partly because I get up early (before 6 am usually) and don't get to sleep by 10 because the rest of the household aren't morning larks.     So I pretty much need an afternoon nap to make up the sleep deficit.  

One of the things I found somewhere on the Whole30 site was that we tend to eat too much of processed sugary things because our bodies are starved for real food.    In other words, we don't get the signal of fullness even when our stomachs are overloaded, because our nutritional needs haven't been met.   That may seem like "Duh!" to many people but for me it was a lightbulb.   That's exactly what I experience when I am eating too much of something non-nutritious.  I feel starved even though my body is overloaded. 

This idea made me feel sorry for my poor body.   No wonder it sends me those desperate messages.   Now I will feel less guilty for my lack of will-power and more inclined to pay attention to what it is trying to tell me.  It's hungry, poor thing!  

All in all,  I can see why Whole30 works so well for some people... it probably resets their system, retrains their way of looking at food, and helps with their nutritional status.    Those were my goals for commiting to the 30 days, so that is working. 

I am planning to cycle through the regimen more rigorously during Lent.    I probably still won't be a purist about sugar in sauces and that kind of thing, but I will probably try to cut out alcohol and nitrate preservatives in meat.    That is just about enough penance to live with. 

For February, I will probably stick pretty close to what I am doing now, except that I may allow for half-and-half in my coffee and a sprinkle of grated cheese on my eggs --  I miss dairy and I probably need the calcium.  

If I were going to write a diet book, it would be something connected with the liturgical year and monastery food and what the saints have written about food.   I found this site Monastery Food.      If I update occasionally on food plans and health for this blog, which I would somewhat like to do, I would probably go in that direction.    

My all time favorite series on weight loss and maintenance through a Christian perspective is bearing blog's series.    In fact, I think I am due for another reread. 

Those Blessed Christmas Cinnamon Rolls

At Our Hearts' Haven, it is the annual cinnamon roll day!!!

 

It all got started when I decided that I wanted to give Christmas gifts to my two closest friends in town........who needed for nothing. Desired nothing. Did not like stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tired of the yearly: How clever can I be this time?.......I thought to myself: 

What can I give them that would not add "stuff" to their homes and lives?

What would be a great gift and yet consumable? 

What talent do I possess, that I have time for?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cinnamon rolls. 

 

 

Yeah. Perfect idea.

 

 

I make very yummy cinnamon rolls.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, for about the last ten years, I have made cinnamon rolls just before Christmas.

And on Christmas Eve, the children and I have delivered them........

.........in time for my friends' Christmas breakfast.

 

 

I still deliver to the same two friends.......and every year, the rest of the list changes up.



 

 

 

I think my favorite compliment came from Abraham,

about four or five years ago.......aged 9 maybe:

 

My family was out of town until we got home late on December 23rd.  Abraham mentioned to his mom that he was looking forward to my annual cinnamon rolls for his Christmas breakfast.  She told him that we were out of town and probably too busy to make the rolls and to not expect any that year.  Well, I awakened early on the 24th, made hundreds of cinnamon rolls, was just about to start the process of frosting the rolls, when the power went out, about 5pm.  I had to finish frosting and packing up the cinnamon rolls by flashlight.  The kids and I took a drive through town, dropping off our gifts......it was so surreal to drive through the mild snow, with not a light in sight.  I left the rolls on Abraham's dining table because they were not at home when we arrived. When they came home later, from their Christmas Eve service, they found the rolls waiting for them.  His mother was very surprised that I had been able to do this in the midst of our crazy week.  Abraham was not.  He gave his mom that "I told you she would come through" comment. And now, every year, I always think about how I am not going to let Abraham down.  He is the annual motivation. 

Not sure he even knows this......

 

 

 

 

This year, my 16 year old son insisted that I not make the rolls without him. He is also a great motivator.  Last year, he told me, "Christmas is not Christmas without your cinnamon rolls, Mama."

 

If I could, I would make cinnamon rolls for all of you.  If you come to visit.....maybe I will.....


Christmas Blessings to you and yours, from Our Hearts' Haven,

                                                                                             Chari