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Looking for a way to bring peace and joy to your day?
Seasons of Joy is my 10-week seasonal guidebook to add rhythm and fun to your daily routine. Each guidebook has ten weeks' worth of circle times, stories, arts, crafts, and handwork, painting, playtime activities and more!
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Oh my goodness, how on earth did it get to be February already!!?!?!
Well, OK, it isn’t February yet. But it’s almost February, and we’re starting our February planning. I have plenty of planning to do, too. Main lessons are as follows:
Yeehaw! Here are some posts I’ve enjoyed around the internet this week. Chocolate eyes has the sweetest little peek-a-boo dolls on her website. She has an easy-as-pie tutorial too. I can envision making all sorts of these– flowers for spring, snowflakes for winter, sunshine for summer, pumpkins for autumn… What a lovely Valentine’s day gift or project! If you’ve hit a homeschool slump, you may want to pop on over to Heart of the Matter for A Winter Tutorial for Homeschooling. She has some great ideas to help brighten these cold winter days. Molly is sick.
She’s not very happy about it either. What started out as a simple cold has morphed into bronchiolitis, and we ended up in the emergency room last night for a breathing treatment and a chest x-ray. It’s not RSV, thank goodness, but seeing her struggle to breath and feeling her baby heart race was certainly scary! Even having a stuffy nose can be frightening for a baby. Infants are obligate nose-breathers, God’s design for allowing them to breathe and nurse at the same time. So when little noses get stuffed up, things can get very difficult very quickly!
We’re taking a 100 Days of Real Food mini-pledge this week and having at least two different fruits and/or veggies at every meal. You might not see this reflected in the meal plan, but we plan on just throwing in what we can when we can. “…blah… blah… blah… BLOOD.” Even though I’m surrounded by books and papers with ten tabs open on my browser as I prepare for a Sunday night frenzy of lesson planning, the last word is enough to make me look up and pay attention to what my four-year-old is saying. “What about blood?” He lifts his foot and shows me a smear of red covering several toes. “Daddy said it will be OK. I either stepped in paint or it’s just a little blood.” He wrinkles his brow and looks to me to tell him that he is indeed fine. I see the question in his eyes.
View of cascading water frozen on the mountains on some back roads of Pennsylvania When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail; When blood is nipt and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl: Tu-who! Tu-whit! Tu-who! -- A merry note! While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw; When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl Then nightly sings the staring owl: Tu-who! Tu-whit! Tu-who! -- A merry note! While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. ~Shakespeare, Love's Labour Lost
Now that we have the camera back… Things have gotten a lot crazier around here! I’ve been seeing lots of posts on various message boards, email loops, and blogs about circle time and I figured what the heck, I would give my unsolicited opinion as well. First, I’ll engage in the ultimate form of hubris, self quotation. From Seasons of Joy: OK, I have had this book for over a year and have been putting off my review of it because to be honest, I just didn’t enjoy it.
The basic plotline is as follows: mankind is doomed, but is given one last chance to set things right. Who will be the one to find the solution to set the world aright? David Ponder, together with the greatest minds in the history of the world. Last Friday, I planned two weeks worth of menus. After shopping my stockpile and freezer, I took the remainder of my list and went to the store. Well, stores. My grocery budget for the 8 of us has just been raised to a high rolling $225 every two weeks. I can make it work, too, with careful planning, shopping multiple stores, and loading my pantry with bargains as I find them. My budget doesn’t include household goods or toiletries, which also helps. We use WIC as well, although rather selectively, and we don’t get everything on the checks because there are some things that we simply can’t get as whole foods. For example, my only choices for peanut butter involve high fructose corn syrup. I do get Cabot cheese, whole milk (BHG free), fruits and veggies, eggs, dry beans, oats, and brown rice. |
Rain on the green grass,
Rain on the trees, Rain on the rooftops, But not on me!  Sincerity
2 Corinthians 1:12 For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home.
~Mother Teresa |
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Copyright © 2012 Seasons of Joy - All Rights Reserved |
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We’re several weeks into our switch to whole foods and we’re doing OK. Today I had a crazy need for chocolate so I used the last of my giftcard the hubby got me for the local natural foods store to pick up some yummy organic peanut butter cups. This way of cooking takes a lot more time and energy and intentionality. We’re getting there…
