This Moment...

{this moment} - A Friday ritual.  A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama 

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I Love Dirt and The Kids Nature Book: Two Reviews

 I Love Dirt is a cute little book that gives ideas for kids activities during each of the four seasons. The ideas are all wonderful ones, but I found that, at least for our family, they were much too basic.... things like going outside at night and looking at stars, or listening and watching for birds in the spring. Those are great things to do with children, no argument there, they are just things we already do and don't need a book to be inspired for that. However, I am guessing that there are many families out there who don't get out into nature much, and the simplistic ideas in this book would inspire them. I found the ideas all wonderful, but I was looking for a book that would provide fresh ideas for exploring in nature, but I didn't find much here. One idea that did stand out, however, was called Handy Plants. It talked about putting an old sock on, walking through some tall grass or other area and letting the seeds stick to the sock. Then putt the sock in a pot, water it, and see what grows. That definitely sounds fun to me! So, in my opinion, this book won't be of much help to those who get out into nature regularly, but may be just what the less adventurous need.

The Kids Nature Book is a book that is broken down into a calender of sorts, with an idea of something to do or learn about each day. Unfortunately, many of the days adventures require being either at the coast or in the dessert, or somewhere that it is snowing, so no one could actually check off each day's project unless they were flying across the globe. But, the book does have some great ideas. Most of them are for grade school kids, so things that are above Finn's comprehension, but there were still a few ideas that I loved: Making a connect the dot with constellations, making your own weather vane and wind chimes, leaf printing, and making an Indian corn necklace. This one is worth checking out, especially for you home-schoolers looking for some new projects with nature. Pin It Now!

Yarn Along.... sort of

Joining in with Ginny over at Small Things for this week's yarn along. This past week we took a family vacation to California. It was marvelous; the weather was gorgeous, the kids were well behaved, and it was loads of fun. Knitting, however, was a disaster. I decided not to bring along the baby sweater I have been working on, for fear that something might happen to it along our travels. So, I decided to bring the yarn I bought to make matching winter hats for Finn and Phoebe. We got to the airport Friday morning and I pulled out my yarn to knit and.... I brought the wrong needles and spent 5 days not being able to knit. It turned out OK in the end.. I did more reading, slept more and probably paid more attention to my kids... but absolutely zero knitting progress since last week.
I did start reading The Historian for my mama book club. My library hold came in the day before we left on our trip. I am a couple hundred pages in and very wrapped up in the story and can't wait to read some more!
What are you knitting? What are you reading? Pin It Now!

Blueberries and Adventures in Dehydrating

Last week we were lucky enough to go to a friend of a friend's farm and pick some blueberries for free! Blueberries for the picking at the tail end of September is something pretty magical if you ask me... just as the local berries are almost all gone and we have turned to apple and pears, we have now been inundated with blues again! yay!
So, we made muffins, snacked out a bunch, froze some and I also decided to break in the dehydrator I got last year as I Christmas gift and dehydrate some blueberries. As soon as I started, I realized I had no idea what I was doing. The manual said to quickly blanch the berries before starting to dehydrate, but that just made them sort of messy. Then it said to dry between 10 and 16 hours, but 18 hours later, many were still big and juicy. A couple hours later, I discarded the ones that didn't seem to be drying and stored the rest, but I have no idea if I dried them enough.
Anyone have any tips on this? I thought that dehydrating would be super easy, but without any experience of what they are supposed to look and feel like, I am not sure if I succeeded.... I guess if they start to mold we will know I should have kept them in longer... Pin It Now!

Simplicity Parenting: A Review

Simplicity Parenting, by Kim John Payne is hands-down the best parenting book I have read. The ideas are simple (things you probably already think about) and there aren't lots of gimmicks, systems, or rewards. This book advocates involving your child in a simpler life. A simpler life is less stress for the child, less stress for the parents, and a happier family overall.
Payne separates the simplification into four major areas: environment, rhythm, schedules, and the adult world. I was sold in this book halfway through the chapter about simplifying your child's environment. Payne suggests that the abundance of toys (books and clothes too) are stressing our children out because they just have too many. Decisions are hard when too many choices are present, and often their minds become overwhelmed and just sort of turn off. Payne cites several cases where a child has been temperamental, acting different, or having characteristics of ADD, and simply by reducing the number of toys and clutter in the child's environment, these symptoms have drastically decreased or disappeared all together.
We have been having some issues with Finn's behavior lately, so before I even finished the chapter on environment, I did a huge purge of Finn's toys. Now, mind you, I was already in the purging mood and had purged a LOT of stuff from our house, so I was sort of on a roll. We have a tiny house (800 square feet) so we don't actually have an overwhelming amount of toys. But we do (did) have way more than we need, and things were constantly cluttered. So, I removed about 1/4 of the books and about 1/3 of the toys from the house and put them into "storage" in the garage. (As you can imagine, the noise-making and plastic toys were the first to go!) I am going to keep them for a couple of months. Toys that he asks for can become a toy library (to exchange for toys in the house) and the rest will be donated.  I was sure that Finn was going to throw a fit when this happened. Before he walked in the house, I explained to him what I did... "I rearranged your room and put some of your toys into the garage for now". He saw his room and was instantly mesmerized by toys that had always been there, but maybe he didn't notice because there were too many choices. Ever since I made this change he has been engaging in solitary imaginative play for about one to two hours a day! And, he has only inquired about a few missing toys (and didn't even want them, he just wanted to make sure they were still in the garage).  And maybe it's my imagination, but in general, Finn has been much more pleasant to be around as well. So far, I am so happy with the results. Now I just need to figure out how to make sure he doesn't add too much to the clutter with his birthday and the holidays right around the corner.
The other chapters focus on making sure your family has some sort of routine or rhythm that you children can rely on, reducing schedules (mainly for older kids) so that children still have ample free time each day, reducing screen time, and reducing the children's involvement with adult issues (politics, money, etc.). Everything Payne said made perfect sense and I have already been putting it into practice at our home.
Simplicity Parenting is basically a call to live a more simple life. You children will become happier, and you will become happier. I recommend that everyone with children read this book. I am certainly glad that I did!
Have you read this book? What were your thoughts? Pin It Now!

Reducing My Impact: A Year-Long Adventure. Month 6- Choosing Local

Wow! I can't believe I am already in month 6 of my year-long adventure to reduce my impact on the planet. Some months have been more successful than others, and some changes haven't worked out so well,.... but others have already become second nature. This month I will be working on choosing local. I am already a big fan and supporter of local food and goods, but I often find myself choosing food or goods that are not local, or going to a chain store because it is cheaper and more convenient than shopping locally. I know that I will still sometimes go to Fred Meyer, JoAnn, or other chain stores. There just isn't a way around it. However, I am going to do a better job of supporting my local shops, local brands, and local foods.
As the end of summer is approaching, and with it the end of the farmers market, local foods will become more scarce, and it will take more work for me to eat seasonally. Last winter I managed to eat mostly locally, but I did have a couple of splurges for mexican grown tomatoes or zucchini in the middle of winter. This winter I will try and keep my produce consumption to the western coast of the United States whenever possible.
I am also going to try to shop at local, non-chain stores more. I know you often pay a higher price at these places, but quality is often higher as well. If I pay $35 for a pair of shoes that both Finn and Phoebe can wear (because they last) and it supports my local economy, that makes more sense than buying Finn and Phoebe each a pair of cheapo shoes for $15 that were made in China and will be worn out before they grow out of them.
But, I am also realistic and know that I won't always be able to support only local. If I can get fabric for $3 a yard at JoAnn, it is mighty hard to go to the fabric shop  down the street and pay $15 for the same thing. We just don't have the extra cash to do that.
My vow this month is to choose local whenever possible. If it costs a little bit more, I am willing to pay that little bit and get a little bit less of it. If it is less convenient because I have to go to several stores instead of one big one, than I can deal with that. I will try and save my trips to the chain stores for when it is a must, and put more money into the hands of my neighbors instead of into the hands of big corporations. Pin It Now!

This Moment...

{this moment} - A Friday ritual.  A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama 

Pin It Now!