There’s always a first time for everything, right?
So here’s Ellie’s reaction to her first sip of wine.
She also got to play with stickers for the first time yesterday. She was so engrossed in them I got a good half an hour of sewing down on Nik’s quilt!
And of course, we didn’t really give Ellie wine – it was sparking apple cider. She made that face after every sip but she still kept asking for more! Thanks Nicole and Stephen for the delicious dinner and delicious “wine”!
I have a day more of perspective now on what happened on Sunday, along with the amazingly kind and wise words of my Aunt Zona and my friend Nicole to help me too. So I just wanted to write a few more thoughts down.
1. I want to be crystal clear that I was in no way saying anything negative about my father, Nik (Ellie’s father), my father-in-law, or any other specific father in my life. I probably should have titled the post, “Sins of the Parents” because clearly I was feeling the weight of what I read and I’m a mother.
2. Zona gave me the perspective of a mother with grown and almost-grown sons to point out that yes we do make mistakes and yes, the Lord can redeem them. Praise Him for that!
3. I promise that I don’t go around groaning under the terribly hard weight of parenting all day. It doesn’t hit me often actually. Most of the time, I am in fact infinitely grateful for the blessings of being Ellie’s mother! Sometimes though, something comes up to help me to see the long-term (or even eternal) significance of what I’m doing and then, yes, the tears come.
It’s possible that none of this would have happened if I’d actually remembered that I was supposed to read Scripture in church yesterday. If I had, I would have read the passage in advance, practiced, looked for the difficult-to-pronounce words and prepared myself. Instead, during the meet and greet time, probably five minutes before I am supposed to read, I remember. I hand Ellie to Nik, grab a Bible and a bulletin (to figure out what I am supposed to read) and speed up to the front. While I am waiting, I skim through…”OK – a few hard names, no problem, yep, Achan steals the silver, hides it, gets caught, he and his family get stoned, OK I got it.”
I stand up in front, “Good morning church. Today’s Scripture reading is from the book of Joshua, chapter 7, verses 10-26.”
And I begin to read, slow and measured, pausing at the commas and the periods, asking the questions, trying to help the church hear, as I see, God’s word. Slow to allow it to sink in, slow to allow it to really be heard.
And I read how the Israelites were called forward tribe by tribe, and then clan by clan, and then man by man, and then household by household, and then man by man again until Achan is taken. And Achan confesses. He admits that the lure of the riches was too strong and he disobeyed the word of the Lord and took the silver and the gold and hid it under his tent.
And Joshua asks, “Why did you bring trouble on us?”
And I read how they gathered all that belonged to Achan – his sons, his daughters, his donkeys, his oxen, and all that he had and they took them to the plain and they stoned them all.
And as I am reading, “his daughters,” I hear Ellie calling for me in the back of the church and my eyes fill with tears and I realize, “His daughters. His daughters had to die too.” And I get choked up and I have to stop and as I pause, I hear Ellie calling for me again, which certainly does not help my composure. And the tears come, in front of the whole church and I just can’t help it. But somehow, I pull it together, I get through the last verses, and I sit down.
And I think, “I know today, in America at least, sons and daughters don’t have to die because of the sins of their fathers. But what of the fatherless children in so many of our cities? And what of the orphans who don’t have parents? And what of the mistakes that we make as parents and the consequences that our children must bear?”
It is a heavy weight sometimes, this task of parenting.
Last weekend, we turned the corner and Ellie became a real walker! She still does quite a bit of knee walking and a little bit of crawling here and there. But she definitely loves to walk now!
Here’s the proof ( from last Sunday). It’s on the long side but if you stick it out until the end, you’ll also see her new fascination with magnets as well as some knee walking.
And on a slightly related note, why in the world do I talk in such a high voice when I’m talking to Ellie??
This post is part of my series, “Kickin’ It Old Skool: Why and How We Are Old-Fashioned” or KIOS for short. If you’re new to the series, please read my disclaimer before continuing on. I’m keeping a table of contents to this series here so you can see what I’ve already written about and what more there is to come.
Four years ago, I read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. When I finished the book, I put it down, looked at Nik, and said:
“Nik, we’re not buying a tomato in the winter ever again.”
To his credit, he didn’t get angry or say I was crazy. He just said, “OK?” and waited for an explanation.
Having just read an amazing, life-changing book, I really struggled to put into words what I was feeling.
It basically came down to wanting to be connected to what we ate in a responsible, ethical manner; wanting to know where my food came from; wanting to appreciate the changing of the seasons with the changes on our plate; wanting to honor God with what we ate as well as what we did.
And so, since January (maybe February?) of 2008, we haven’t bought a tomato in the winter. We haven’t bought much fresh food at all in the winter since then.
But this series isn’t just about eating. I know that many of my friends and family have been asking me to write about the whys and hows of the way we eat. So I’m going to tackle that first.
This series is also about how that simple sentence about a tomato has changed Nik and I in many other ways as well.
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We don’t watch TV. We don’t even use the Internet on Sundays (well, most Sundays unless we really need it or if there’s a big tennis tournament).
We clean with vinegar and baking soda. That’s it. Nothing else.
We bed-share with Ellie. We’re planning on letting her nurse for a good long time. We delivered in a birth center without pain medication. We have very few toys and none that use batteries. We might even unschool her (at least when she’s younger.)
We prefer local and handmade to retail and industrial.
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Some might say we’re weird. Some might call us old-fashioned. Some might think we’ve gone off the deep end.
But then again, some might say what we’re doing is pretty cool. DIY is the hip, new thing right? Some might say that they wish they could do what we do.
I might agree with all of the above.
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We certainly don’t have everything figured out and there’s lots more I’d like to learn. You’re welcome to join me as I write about what we’ve learned, what we do, and why we do it.
My Aunt Zona has given me a new motto.
“Progress, not perfection.”
And yes, I am making progress on the Roman shades for our living room and dining room. I’ve discovered that I have enough fabric to make five shades, enough for all three windows in our living room, as well as in our dining room. I’m going to use the right side of the fabric for the dining room and the wrong side for the living room. I love both sides so this is a good way to get to see both of them!
Most of the work in making Roman shades is on the planning end. The sewing is easy. So my Excel spreadsheet is finished, my sketches are made, I’ve figured out my pleat distances, how many screw eyes and other supplies I need to buy, and all that.
Today, Ellie and I worked on marking out where I need to cut the fabric for each shade.
Those binder clips on the left are my cutting marks. Most of what you can see is the wrong side.
I need every inch of fabric (literally, within two inches) so I have zero room for error. Consequently paranoid of mistakes, I’ve measured both the windows and the fabric 5-6 times at this point. Ellie got bored of all this measuring and occupied herself quite well.
After we’d rolled up the fabric , she had fun pushing it across the living room.
That’s the [blurry] right side.
And now, to summon up the courage to actually cut it! My goal is to get at least one shade cut out today.
Two friends came over to spend the morning with us today so that their mommy could have a little time to herself and learn how to make more amazingly beautiful cakes. (I think she’s pretty good at it already!)
While little J (who is almost 9 months) took a nap in the Ergo on my front,
Ellie and A ( who is 2 1/2) had a fun time trying on all my necklaces.
Note Ellie’s pouty lower lip because she wants the jewelry box!
Ellie was probably wondering why I never let her play with these amazingly fun things before!
It was a fun morning!
(And wow, is it easier to wear a nine-month old than a 16-month old. I was hardly even tired after wearing him for an hour!)
Another post in my occasional series, “How to ________ without _________“
This is my go-to bread recipe these days when I need to make some bread quickly to serve with dinner. It’s not artisan bread (as in it won’t have a crazy, crackling crust or anything) but it’s easy, quick, and pretty good. It’s also a good bread to make if you’re just starting into bread making. The dough is really forgiving so it’s a good recipe to learn on.
Seeded French Bread
from Simply in Season
4 C whole wheat flour
2 C white bread flour**
2 T active dry yeast
2 T sugar
1 tsp salt
Mix together in a large bowl.
2 1/2 C hot water (hot but not uncomfortable to the touch)
2 T olive oil
Add to the flour mixture and mix well.
First, it will look like this:
After you’ve mixed for awhile, it will look like this:
When you get to this point is when you’ll probably want to ditch the spoon and use your hands.
Knead the bread for until all the flour is incorporated and the dough feels smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes or so. Add a little more flour if the dough is sticking too much. A little stickiness is fine. (There are lots of videos on YouTube about how to knead bread dough if you’ve never done it before.)
You want the dough to end up looking like this:
Grease a bowl and put the dough in, flipping it over to get both sides greased. Cover with a damp cloth and let it rise until it has just about doubled in size (usually about 1-2 hours for me). Press the dough down and then let it sit for about 20 more minutes. Then split the dough into three parts and form each section into a loaf. I usually use a rolling pin to roll my dough into a rectangle and then roll up the rectangle.
Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal and put the loaves on it. Cut a few diagonal lines in the loaf with a serrated knife (that would be a Double-D edge for us Cutco people).
Let the loaves rise until they’ve doubled again (usually just 30 minutes or so for me).
1 egg
2 tsp water
seeds: sesame, poppy, or fennel
Mix the egg and water together. Use a pastry brush to brush on top of the loaves. Sprinkle the loaves with the seeds.
Sometimes I split the dough into four parts instead of three for slightly smaller loaves.
Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. I like mine to be on the brown, crunchy side so I cook them a bit longer than the recipe says.
These pictures are actually from almost a year ago. I made twelve loaves of this bread for Ellie’s baptism luncheon, which was about 8 loaves of bread too many. I’m not exactly sure why I thought everyone would eat so much bread. So we gave the bread away as party favors!
This bread freezes well. I try to keep some in the freezer most of the time. It makes dinner time during the week a breeze! To defrost, I wrap the frozen loaf in foil and put it in a 375 oven for 20-30 minutes, until it’s heated through.
Delicious!
**When working with whole wheat flour, it’s really important to the texture of the bread to use white bread flour (as opposed to all-purpose flour). If you plan on making whole wheat bread, it’s really worth it to have white bread flour in your baking supplies. I used to be a skeptic about having multiple kinds of flour but my sister-in-law Meggan (and now experience) converted me!
I am really in love with making drawstring bags currently! I made this one for Ellie yesterday. My friend Anne gave me the great idea of having a bag to keep in the car with some toys and books. So, I put a car on it to help us remember where it belongs when not in use!
I put a pocket on the other side with Ellie’s initial.
The outside is Kona Grass Green with a lilac print from Joann’s (purchased for the purple page.) The inside is actually from a worn out crib sheet that my sister-in-law gave me!
I turned this one into a backpack to make it easier for us to carry. I’m really pleased with how it turned out!
I used this tutorial but enlarged it, added the outer embellishments, and turned it into a backpack.
I finally finished hand-sewing the binding to the back of Nik’s quilt! Normally, this is when I would be able to announce that I was finally completely finished. Alas, I still have to hand sew some letters on – the heat transfer “glue” is wearing off. So to keep “SNOOZER” safe forever, I need to sew them on. I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel though!
And here’s my assistant, trying to put the lens cap back on because she’s tired of me taking pictures of the quilt.
Salmon and Souvlaki 