It’s easy to think of reasons to not do something: it’s cold, I’m tired, life is hectic, etc.
But sometimes it is a lot nicer to make excuses to go and do something.
We went on a little hike. It’s not necessarily great hiking weather, and there aren’t fall leaves to see, or spring flowers or even snow. I was very pregnant, the kids aren’t always easy to get out of the door. But we went anyway.
We walked slowly and didn’t go very far. But all of us were happier because we went.
I remember watching an old cartoon, set in a classic futuristic space setting. For food, they ate a single pill, full of everything needed to survive. It is a concept repeated other places as well: test-tube food. Just figure out the basic necessities of life pack it into one package and then have no worries about nutrition.
It is a reality that has fringes in our current standard diet: Ensure, formula, vitamin packed powders, and breakfast cereals packed with extra vitamins. Recently, the real food movement has pushed away from this overly simplistic science, acknowledging that we often can’t replicate the variance that our diets require, variance only found in the natural world. For the most part we still eat a wide variety of foods, and a varied diet is encouraged.
I watched this video, and started to wonder again about that test tube food. Modern mainstream agriculture is striving for that test tube approach. Figure out the right balance of nutrients, add it to crops in chemical fertilizers. Our food is becoming the result of too ridgid science, focusing not on the hundreds of nutrients in the natural world but a handful that are the most prevalent.
What we put into our food production is also what comes out. And if we are striving for test tube agriculture, the food that comes out is test tube food. It might look like a varied diet, but really often is the same test tube grains processed in ways that simply look different. I realized at one point that sometimes the various processed food I was eating was the same exact food, just flavored and colored to appear different.
When I produce my own food, I don’t use chemical fertilizers, or try to figure out exactly what a plant needs. I focus on natural systems, and let them do the too complex work to figure out myself. And I can see the benefit, in the yolks of my free range eggs, the taste of homegrown tomatoes, and feeling more healthy than ever during the height of harvest season. Test tube, over simplified science shouldn’t be the base of our diet, and so it shouldn’t have a place in our agriculture as well.
I ran across Dinovember last year, but didn’t do anything. This year, the dinosaurs had quite a fun November in our house. Here is what they were up to.
The kids enjoyed it as well as the adults. PB even had suggestions for things the dinosaurs could do like pillow fighting and playing cars. It helped C when we woke up a bit grumpy to go find what fun things the dinosaurs were up to.
What am I grateful for in my life?
A growing baby inside of me
Two awesome boys that I get to play with and teach each day
A marriage that just keeps getting better
A husband with a great job he loves and that keeps our bank account from empty
The spiritual and emotional growth I have accomplished
The chance to re-try so many times
My own home that is large and full of stuff
Learning about permaculture and gaining a new perspective on gardens
Opportunity to help out others with their gardens, including the community garden
Friendships that continue to grow
Gardens and chickens
Opportunities that are only limited by imagination
Babies are too unpredictable. I am uncomfortably pregnant. Both my other boys arrived before I reached 38 weeks, although one was induced, and I wasn’t certain on the other due date. I’m past 37 weeks, so now it is just waiting. I know my husband would love to be able to plan work off better if he actually knew when the baby was coming, but our baby will come just when he is ready. And really, I don’t know if I am.
Joe has been super busy with work. He took a promotion and will be the Rehab leader at one of the nursing homes. But he still has all his old responsibilities, and he has picked up more home health patients. Because of the extra work, we decided to buy an second car. It’s the first time we’ve had two cars in the 6.5 years we’ve been married. We bought an old truck that matched our small budget. (I really did not want to get into more debt.) I think Joe will enjoy not biking to work when it is snowing now.
We put up our Christmas tree and started listening to Christmas music. It’s not after Thanksgiving yet, but I wanted to get it done before baby came, and Christmas is less than a month away.
Here are the kids at the museum Grandma and daddy. I went Christmas shopping.
I had a goal to make my own bread for a long time. But I was never motivated enough to bake it regularly until I put it on my chore rotation. I bake two loaves about once a week, which is perfect for our family. Now we rarely buy bread, and I enjoy eating homemade bread consistently, as well as having it a main portion of my children’s diet. I grind my own wheat as well, using white wheat which I like much better than traditional hard red wheat.
I use my mom’s recipie, that I’ve modified to fit my own mixer and tastes. It is very simple and I have good results with it.
Whole Wheat Bread
Recipe yields two large loaves
- 3 cups warm water
- 2 tablespoons yeast
- 1/3 cup vital wheat gluten
- 8ish+ cups whole wheat flour
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/2 cup oil
Grind flour if not already done. Combine warm water and yeast. Add wheat gluten and 3 cups of flour in a mixer with a good dough hook. Add remaining ingredients. Gradually add flour until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl. Turn mixer on medium high and allow to knead for 6 minutes. Divide dough into two parts, and form into loaf shapes. Place in bread pans. Preheat oven to 350. When oven is heated and dough is risen (I allow the bread to rise the same time it takes to heat the over), bake bread for 30 minutes.
I love making bread, not only because it is delicious, but because it was a goal I wanted to do and have now met. I didn’t reach my goal for a long time, but eventually I figured out a system that worked for me. It reminds me that if I give myself time and just keep trying other goals that I have will become realities.
I see my children playing for hours making castles in the sandbox, parking lots of matchbox cars, and drawings that grow from scribbles to recognizable shapes and people. Childhood is joyful. There is a lot of free time to explore and play. Responsibility and worries aren’t as great, there is more room to be creative and playful. I can look back on my own childhood with happy memories of hours spent playing outside climbing trees, of reading book after book, and flying in the stars in pretend spaceships.
But I don’t think being a child is always fun and games. I have plenty of memories from my own childhood of frustration, disappointment and pain. It can be a hard time of life, with a lot of expectations to learn, and dealing with problems with little experience or emotional capacity. I see my own children in tears as they can’t quite make their drawing look right, they don’t understand why we have to leave a friend’s house, or get in trouble for wrestling their brother or drawing on the walls.
What do I want my children to gain from their childhood? I want them to learn and grown and turn into responsible and righteous people. Sometimes I am frustrated as we face the same problems with little progress. I can feel angry, inadequate as a mother, and even hopeless.
It helps to remind myself that they are children. They want to play and be happy and have yet to develop all the understanding of an adult. I do need to guide them and correct them, but it is just as important to help them experience the joy of childhood. I want them to look back on their childhood and have more memories of the joy of playing, than to remember time-outs and tears.
So sometimes, I can let things go. Parenting is as much about playfulness as discipline, and is never about being perfect. When I want my children to do something that they aren’t too interested in, forcing them often accomplishes nothing. It is far more important for a child to experience play and creativity then to always be pushing them to live up to expectations they can’t reach. They will grow and get better, at their own pace and only with gentle guidance.
Right now, it is often better to let them track mud in the house than to stop them from making mud pies, to clean up a big mess of paint with a smile instead of putting a child on time-out, and to go outside and play in the rain instead of getting one more chore done.
Liz Braithwaite 