Lovingheart

The kids are at a nice stage right now. Many times I enjoy just hanging out with them, watching them create whatever story it is and them just being themselves. PM loves sticks and rocks. He is always picking up some stick or other. They are often used as street cleaners, or graders, or snow plows. Ya know – construction/utility type trucks. Or dipping sticks in puddles and then splashing muddy water all over the place. The other day PM had one of his usual sticks – about 3 times as tall as him with many small branches on it. Running this way and that and playing with the puddles. LB says she needs one too. Reaches out to the nearest tree and easily breaks off one of the lower branches. This stick is shorter than her and more like a twig and seems quite comical compared to PM and his super sized sticks. Here she is trying to be like him and really what she chooses doesn’t compare and yet it does and suits her perfectly. They both seem to want to be like the other. LB adores

Recently heard from someone that an organic farmer she visits was telling her that the larger grocery stores won’t take his produce – he doesn’t produce enough to supply the whole region so they will buy from someone that can. Ugh! Thus it is the large guys that have the control again. I have written before about my opinion of health food stores vs. grocery stores . For whatever reason I am back on my soapbox again. The above person and I were exchanging emails and she is thrilled that she is supporting a local farmer and getting some products for cheaper than she would in the store – freshness, contact with the person involved in getting the product to you, supporting small farms, visits with animals involved in bringing you the food (be it dairy, eggs or meat and heck even fertilization of produce) and of course saving money. How can it be changed to be more supportive to smaller farms? Well realistically we can only do our part. I like to buy directly from th

I have lived in the city for most of my life. I even felt ok living in Toronto for many years but then I felt the desire to get out more. With kids the desire to move was even stronger. Not wanting the children to be raised in the city. But living in the city definitely has its advantages. Today we drove the hour to the city to participate in a homeschool organized trip. A play. There were many children there and there were a lot of friends that seemed to get together on a more regular basis. In general there are more activities. One may be less likely to need to drive to visit with others. Our situation is great in that we live out of the city on a property with a lot of land. There are woods, open fields, running water, still water, cedar houses, hills and flat land. At the same time if we want to get together with a friend the drive is longer (though it may not take longer to get there as there is less traffic and less street lights). You think twic

Whenever I break the seal of a jar of something I canned I feel a thrill that this is something I put my time and effort into and that I did it. Last summer was my first time experimenting with canning and for the most part it was a great success (except for the pumpkin). The tree on the property was overflowing with apples and I made a lot of applesauce. A lot! Still have jars of it in the basement but that is ok because it keeps, it is a popular item, and friends like it as well. I also made apple butter – the whole fruit, no sugar added and this is good in our fudge and baking. I am getting low on the tomato sauce that I canned and feel a sadness that it is almost gone. I have appreciated having it to cook with. I noticed the sweetness it added to the mixed veggies this evening. Though I have store bought pasta sauce as well, and it is one I like quite a bit, it doesn’t seem to compare to the stuff I made. Seems there will be a lag time between using up

PM’s ‘guys’ are pretty important to him. He has various ones – mostly Lego guys and a couple from a truck he got a few years ago. When they come into the house they get names – partially so that he can talk to me about them and to assist in finding them – he can tell me that he can’t find ‘so-and-so’ and I know who/what I’m looking for. The day after PM’s birthday party he noticed that Chopper (a Playmobile construction worker) was missing – his hat was here but he wasn’t. We/I looked high and low. Any spot I thought of that he may have been hiding was scoured. It felt like it was constantly there in me and I was often looking for him throughout the day whether I was in the kitchen, in the bedroom, or any other room. I am like that – if I can’t find something it will be front and center until I find it (however I just noticed an exception about this today – more on that in a minute). The loss of Chopper was even more pronounced because I had bought him a new const

Ha, ha! After I wrote about our ‘wonderful’ diet and how great we are eating I was laughing to think of what the kids had just eaten for lunch. Hot dogs and potato chips. Ah the perfect health foods. I guess I did say we aren’t perfect. The kids sure did enjoy the potato chips (yes, they may be a marginally healthier kind that your regular run of the mill ones) and it is something they haven’t had in a long time. As for hot dogs LB gets ones that are nitrite-free and organic and PM eats ones that are elk meat and so they do have some more undesirable ingredients but on occasion I figure it won’t kill him. Sometimes convenience foods are nice to have around as long as they aren’t relied on too much.

A relatively common sight around here these days is LB sitting on the floor inspecting her toes saying ‘I daddy-oes, I daddy-oes urt’. She has what looks like a blister between her big toe and the second toe. I think it is PM that coined the big toe as the daddy toe. I can’t get too close to her toe, and any offer to put anything on it is met with a negative. One time I did offer a band aid (she’s more intrigued with them after I was wearing one on my thumb for many days) and she accepted. It only lasted a few minutes on her foot before she peeled it off. So we just listen to her talk of ‘daddy-oes’ and trust that it is healing well. I was laughing this morning as the kids were fighting over the last green muffin . Here we have green muffins or black muffins. And no they aren’t green because of mold. How would that sound to an outsider? Both of these different muffins are free of grain flour and are relatively unsweetened. We ration out fish oils while

We survived PM’s party. I even survived the preparation for it. I think it went quite well all things considered. Crazy and chaotic but PM had fun for this party. He had said that he didn’t like LB’s birthday party – the best part had been the cake. I was glad he liked the cake because he doesn’t always like things I make (I suppose it depends on how sweet it is and her cake wasn’t that sweet). Onto PM’s birthday – well maybe we’ll stay on the topic of cakes for a while. He started talking about what kind of cake he was going to have for his birthday shortly after his sister’s (2 months apart). It took a while for the decision to be made. He wanted banana and raspberry with strawberry icing (at first it was going to be pineapple as well but then we decided to put that on the pizza instead) with no flour. My way of doing this is to check out a few recipes for ideas and then make my own creation, as long as it was

Many people believe that doctors and the medical system are good to fall back on in the case of broken bones and other fixit type problems. I struggle with this still. Last week when I sprained my ankle there was the question as to whether it was broken. The way the pain was so specific in certain areas and the reaction I had when it happened made me wonder. At the same time I felt that if it was broken it would heal just fine on its own. Then I start to wonder. T also feels great concern and says that if it’s broken I need to be taking better care of it and not using it. So I break down and go to the hospital. Bad timing. It is busy and they are backed up. After waiting for over two hours I finally get in. Doctor sees me for 1 minute and sends me for x-rays. The technician takes me along and x-rays my foot in many angles. I am freaking out with concern for the radiation my poor body is enduring. Here all I have is this small apron to protect me and it