Thanksgiving 2024

We hosted our friends, The Kennedys, for Thanksgiving. Our guests brought chocolate truffle to share with those of us who could eat it for dessert.  

This year, since Norah and I have to eat gluten, dairy, and sugar free, we decided to make two different versions of almost every side- dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and pumpkin pies- so we had a regular version of these dishes and a second gluten, dairy, sugar free option, too. 

I made a gluten, dairy, and sugar free apple crisp that everyone loves, even those who don't have to eat it. 

I also made Alton Brown's stove top mac and cheese at Adele's request, but I didn't even try to make a second gluten, dairy, and sugar free version of that. Norah and I just didn't eat any of that. 

We also had roasted carrots and, of course, turkey. 

After dinner, we made a pot of hot Earl tea, and gathered in the living room. Dwayne read a Merton quote about gratitude, and we took turns sharing what we are thankful for, then we sang hymns and Jim played his guitar. Later, after dessert, Norah recited one of her poems, and we enjoyed talking for a while until our guests went home. 

We've taken down the fall decorations, but we're still enjoying the sunflowers that were part of the table decorations.  

We are thankful for the holiday spent with friends. It certainly made the day sweeter. 

Paint Your Way Through Art History

Pictures of two of Avril's recent projects in Paint Your Way Through Art History at Delightful Art Co. 

The first project is a copy of Durer's "Saint Jerome in His Study." 

The second is a copy of "The Oxbow" by Thomas Cole. 

She'll be getting college credit for this class through Bryant College. 

Hillbilly Elegy

I listened to J.D. Vance's book. 

Many parts of his early life story were uncomfortably familiar to mine even through the details were vastly different. 

And painful though it was to be taken back to my some of my traumatic memories through hearing his, in total, the book was a confirmation to me that I have made a similar journey out of poverty and chaos and addicition into stability and even prosperity. 

Vance credits specific people who helped him.

He also admits to making many difficult choices to leave, to change, and even to forsake one way of life for another that was totally foreign to him.  

There were strategic people in my life, too. (People at church.)

I also consistently made painful choices- some mental, some spiritual, but many, if not most, were simply practical and physical- and these choices led me out and away from the life I may have inherited otherwise. 

In many ways, Vance's book was a secular explanation of how one person got out of poverty, but then again, almost didn't. 

I realize that someone could describe my life on similar, merely secular terms. 

She got a scholarship. 

She managed to keep it somehow.   

She met a guy who had been raised in a different way of life. 

She learned one million little ways of doing life differently than she had had life modeled for me, and she did those things consistently, and now, her life is totally different. 

But, at least for my story, I'll say that any merely secular version of my story is only 1% of the truth, and if you described my life in material terms alone, you'd miss the real story about the greater, unseen realities at work. 

I gave my life to Christ when I was a teenager, really gave Him the whole thing- and that has made all the difference- even the material, physical difference. 

Vance's book was a painfully beautiful story that honors his roots, while nevertheless, tells the awful truth about the realities of poverty, addition, and disorder in many American families. 

It prompts me to remember and give thanks for so much. 

And Then There Was One

Avril was part of our church's production of the play "And Then There Was One," a spoof on Agatha Christie's famous murder mystery. 

The play was a fundraiser for the youth missions trips next summer. 

She and a team of other teens made funny sound effects for the play as the cast was on stage from start to finish. You can see her with one of the other teens on the team in the photo above. 

Being even a small part of a show for the larger grown-up cast was a lot of work for the teens- hours and hours and hours in the weeks leading up to the play. 

But the play was so fun to watch, so it was more than worth it.  

Avril's big sister, Norah, brought her flowers on the last evening of the show. 

We're all so proud of Avril for being willing to do something so challenging.

 

Keep Extra Supplies in Your Pantry and Plan Your Meals

We do the household and grocery shopping only once a week- usually on Saturdays. 

Shopping only once a week saves a lot of time and effort and allows us to just focus on homeschool during the week without any interruptions. 

I suppose I live too far away from the store to ever just "run to the store." 

Running to any store usually takes up at least an hour when it is all said and done. 

So it saves us time and effort to shop once a week, but when all is said and done, we find that we actually save money, too. 

We are never using extra gas, never shopping based on mood or impulse, and we are never in the stores mid-week seeing more and more stuff we want to buy, so it really saves to simply go into the store less often. 

To make it possible to go to the store only once a week, we have learned to do two main things:

#1. We have to plan all our meals for the week on Saturday before going to the store, and we make a grocery list based on those meals, buying little to no extra food, which means we save money.  

#2. We also have to have extra products on hand to be able to "shop" from our own supplies that we have in the house when we run out of something mid-week. 

Keeping supplies in the house-

It will take a while to figure out the products you use all the time and need to have on hand. 

It will also take a while to buy the extra portions over time. 

But it's a great idea for any homeschool mom to try and keep a limited supply of all of the products, food and non-food, you consistently use, and these can be stored in your pantry, storage closet, or freezer, depending on the product.  

For example, in the freezer, I keep chicken breasts, ground beef, ground turkey, ham, sausage, etc. in meal-sized portions and each week, as I plan meals and as I fill in the grocery list, I "shop" from the freezer, bringing the meat I want to use up to the fridge in the kitchen to begin to thaw in time for me to use it in the next few days for meals. 

In the pantry, I always have somewhere between 1-12 cans diced tomatoes, tomatoes and chillies, beans of all varieties, refried beans, enchilada sauce, etc. -things I use all the time. I also need to keep extra oat milks, rice cakes, nut butters, tortilla chips, etc., because we burn through those products quickly. 

In the closet, I also keep at least one container of all the necessary household supplies like trash bags, toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, ziplocks of all sizes, personal hygiene products, cleaning supplies, etc. 

Now that I have extra food and supplies on hand like this, I literally never have to take time or effort mid-week to run to the store. 

We can simple "shop" from our storage. 

When we run out of paper towels, we "shop" from the paper towels in the closet. 

When we run out of laundry detergent or dish washing soap, we "shop" from the closet. 

When we need beans for dinner, we run down to the pantry and get what we need. 

If I use the last of something mid-week, or if I notice that inventory is getting too low on an item, I add that to the shopping list for Saturday, but in the meantime, we still have whatever we need, because we got it from our excess in storage. 

Having supplies means our home just keeps moving on with our school day, day after day after day. 

Plan Meals-

We keep a shopping list and add things through the week as we notice we are out of something or running low. 

But on Saturday morning, I also take a more careful inventory of everything in the house- the fridge, freezer, pantry, and closet- and based on what I see, I add needed items to the list. 

I also decide all the meals I'll be making that week (including snacks, breakfasts, lunches, and desserts), and I check to see if I have all the ingredients, or if I have them in storage, and if I don't (or if I'm running low), I add those items to the list, so I can make those specific meals.  

When we come home with groceries, we open the garage and honk the horn, and the kids know to come down and help us carry everything up and put it away. 

We teach the kids where to put things and that way, they can run and get it mid-week when we're in the middle of doing something like making dinner. 

We definitely expect our kids to help with all the household chores. 

It's part of their homeschooling. 

By keeping supplies on hand and planning our meals, we have all we need once the homeschool week begins again. 

Every decision has been thought through and made and prepared for. 

This means that during the weekdays, we hardly have any errands to run- not even one. 

Of course, there's still the dentist and orthodontist and pediatrician, but generally speaking, having meals planned and all supplies on hand means that we are just free to do our homeschool work or read, etc. 

 

Arcus Loves Showers

Our pet sun conure, Arcus, loves to take showers in the kitchen sink. 

He sits on his perch on the counter while I wash dishes. The sound of the falling water is usually irresistible to him. Once the sink is empty, he knows it's his turn to use the sink and he often can't resist walking over and hopping down into the sink and under the running water. At that point, I usually turn down the water and transfer his perch to the sink, so he has a firmer place to sit. 

When he's all done, he flies up to my shoulder- a very messy affair, since he gets me all wet. 

After that, he is content to sit on his perch again on the counter, shaking himself out, fluffing out his feathers and drying as I continue my work in the kitchen. 

 

Paint Your Way Through Latin

Adele is in Paint Your Way Through Latin, an online art class hosted by Delightful Art. Co. In her most recent class, they painted a mural found in Pompeii. 

Homeschool Science Fair (without the fair)

Adele is doing a science fair project without the fair, since we are no longer a part of a homeschool co-op that does a science fair. 

We still aren't sure what Adele's specific science fair question will be or what her experiment will look like. 

That will come later. 

For now, Adele is interested in preserving cut flowers, so that's the topic we are researching everyday more and more in depth. 

As we sit together and search for sources and read through information, we naturally ask more and more questions about the specifics involved with the topic, and we write those questions down, too. 

So, after only a few days of research, we already have several questions to answer. 

So at this point, we aren't afraid we won't know what to do next; We have enough questions already to keep us busy for days, and I'm sure more questions will arise.

This research portion of the project may take weeks. 

Adele has started keeping handwritten research notes (and she also records all the new research questions that come up) in a composition book. 

After a Google search using a few key words or phrases about the topic or questions, we click on articles or sites that seem promising and legitimate. 

After a brief scan of the website or article, I can usually tell if a source has valuable information that answers all or even part of one or more of our questions about her topic. 

At that point, we read the content together and we discuss it and I explain complicated things (if I can.) 

Note: If I can't explain difficult content, I just tell her I can't explain it or I don't understand it (yet), and then I have the opportunity to model to her how to keep going in the face of uncertainty. 

Once we have read a source and we know what content applies to her research topic directly, I will either print the article and highlight the content that needs to go into her notebook, or I will copy and paste words and phrases from an article or website into a word.doc that I print for her. 

Then she hand copies all the important notes and info into her notebook. 

She's also keeping track of the specific sources and the relevant website addresses, so she can make a bibliography. 

It's a very time consuming process! 

And, as you can see, I help her a lot. 

Part of what I am doing is showing her how to research, and that is something that needs to be modeled elbow to elbow. 

After the first day of research, after more than an hour of taking notes by hand, Adele still said, "This is fun!" 

I agreed with her that it is fun, indeed!

It's fun to learn about the specific content she wants to research- flower preservation. 

But it's also fun to learn that you can learn about anything that you are curious about by simply being willing to ask and answer questions about the topic. 

One of the main things I want her to take away from this project is the knowledge that she can learn anything if she's willing to do the work. 

Visit to The Met

We met up with our friends at The Met. 

The Met is one of the only field trips we ever take, and we like to take it a few times a year. 

We like to find works of art that are our old favorites. 

And we always something new that strikes us. 

I recognized this head across the room, because I'm reading Aristotle for grad school right now! He is taking up all the extra space in my head, and I couldn't be happier about it! 

And I'll be reading Socrates soon! 

Illuminated manuscripts are always some of my favorite things to see. The vibrancy of the colors is astounding. Even the best printers can't match these colors after hundreds of years. 

Taking a break after walking around for hours

Avril recently painted her own imitation of this painting in her Art History class through Delightful Art Co. 

We met this lovely artist named Dwight and purchased one of his prints, which he signed and dedicated to our family.

This is a photo we've been taking and retaking for years now- the three girls in front of the three graces. 

This field trip of all field trips never is a waste and never grows old to us. 

 

Best Part of the Day

Lately, one of my favorite parts of the day is cleaning the kitchen after dinner. 

I'm aware of how sad that sounds, but hear me out. 

Tonight, Adele helped me clear off the table, put away leftovers, and hand dry all the pots and pans and put them away as I loaded the dishwasher and hand washed the things that couldn't go in the machine. 

We listened to worship music and sang as worked around one another efficiently. 

This habit of cleaning up the kitchen started with Fly Lady. She says to go so far as to shine your sink every evening. That's a bit too much for me. But I certainly empty mine. I'll only take out the stainless steel cleaner once every week or two. 

Leaving the kitchen clean at night was something I aspired to for years, but it's finally become a very happy habit. 

It makes a difference that I don't have babies or toddlers who demand more time, but instead, I have grown daughters that help. 

And, at this point, it's a real (albeit mundane) joy to work in the same space with them so efficiently.  

Having an empty sink to start your day can make to big difference to your morning. 

It's easier to brew coffee and prepare healthy foods if everything's clean and out of the way. 

The Best Christmas Movie Ever

We have been reading "The Best Christmas Pageant" aloud at Christmas time on and off for ten years or more. It's hilarious and heartwarming. You will laugh. You will cry. 

It was made into a movie, so we took the family to see it this week. Dwayne and I tried to surprise the kids, but they figured it out when we turned toward the theater. We don't do many out-of-the-ordianry things, so I guess we are quite predictable after all. 

It was a great movie! It has a very different pace than most movies these days- much, much slower- but if you love the book, they've honored the book, so you should love this movie. We did! 

Gather and Display Homeschool Work

I like to display my daughters' homeschool work on our mantle. 

I purchased a few display stands, and I use them to display the most recently finished essays, visuals, artwork, etc. 

All the artwork from a certain class goes in the same folder with the newest art on top. 

All the history essays and their visuals go in another folder. 

All the literature essays go in another. 

All the science research reports and visuals go in another. 

This way, by the end of the year, in almost every subject or class, there's a "book" worth keeping and rereading, and as you turn the pages, you step your way back to beginning of the school year. 

Gathering their work into "books" and displaying their work is a wholesome way to encourage healthy pride in their work.  

It also provides a means of accountability.

If your homeschool students know their work will go into a book that they will keep and look at again and again, and if they know others will see their work and engage with them about it, they tend to care more and do a better job. 

This is also a practical way for the whole family to share in what they are doing and continue enjoying their work long after it is complete. 

One of my daughters' favorite things is to go find and read through the book that their older sister has made back when she went through a subject. 

Their dad is usually at work all day, but this way, he can take down their essays at his leisure and read them and discuss the ideas with them when it is convenient or interesting for him to do so. 

Displaying their work, too, is a way to fill our home with "rare and beautiful treasures" like Scripture says. 

Artifacts made by our own hands make some of the rarest and most beautiful treasures in my opinion. 

The mantle works best in our home, but you could choose another location that works better for you if you like this idea and want to implement it, too. 

Homemade Hand Soap with Essential Oils

I bought the Young Living Thieves hand soap once. It was $16, which is almost unbelievable. Sorry, Young Living fans. That's expensive. 

But I had a plan in mind.  I didn't have a soap dispenser like this. So when the soap ran out, I simply refilled the same dispenser with two tablespoons liquid Castile soap, approximately 6-8 drops of Young Living's Thieves essential oil, and 2-4 drops of their Citrus Fresh blend. Then I turn the water on to a trickle and gently, slowly fill up the rest of the space with water directly from my faucet. I put the lid back on securely and turn it over a few times, so that the ingredients can mix. Viola! Homemade hand soap! 

Note: Some people use distilled water. I find that to be "a bridge too far," so to speak. If I had to use distilled water or boil water to purify my water, I wouldn't make my own soap. It's obviously better to use sterile water, but it's not something I am overly concerned with at this point in my "crunchy mom" journey. 

Note: My friend gave me a gallon of Castille soap when she moved a few years ago, so that was a huge blessing. A little goes a long way, so I am still using the soap she gave me.  

I use the same "recipe" for my bathroom soap as well. I purchased the Ever Spring soap from Target once. It was only $3-5, making it much more affordable. I do the same thing described above. I fill the empty container with two tablespoons of liquid Castille soap, then I add 7-10 drops Bergamot and Lavender blend of essential oils. Then I turn on the water to a gentle trickle and fill the space in the rest of the container. I turn it over and back a few times to mix it. 

I'm saving a ton of money on hand soaps by reusing the containers I have and making my own. I also save a ton of time and effort. I can replace a soap container in minutes- no shopping required. 

 

Taylor Leonhardt

We attended the Taylor Leonhardt concert at the Community Coffeehouse in Danbury last night. It was surreal to hear the songs we have listened to for months sung live. Since the girls are guitar students, it was fascinating to watch her play the guitar with such mastery. The Taylor gifted the girls her set list and even signed it! 

How to Do Science Fair At Home

We are no longer a part of our Classical Conversations group, but I still want Adele to complete a Science Fair project for the sake of all the great things she will learn from the process. 

We often buy the cheap bouquets of flowers at the grocery store and have them around the house, usually in the center of our kitchen or classroom tables, sometimes in the hallway like the photo shows above.  

Fresh flowers don't need to be fancy to add an exponential amount of beauty and joy to your home (and homeschool.)

Adele expressed curiosity about the powder we add to the water to keep flowers fresh. 

She wondered what it is made of? 

Could we make our own with stuff around the house? 

Could we make something that works even better than what comes with the bouquets we buy at the store? 

So that's where our research will begin. 

I'm not sure what her research question, hypothesis, or experiment will be yet, but maybe after enough research and information, those things will come forth naturally. 

This is how my older daughter, Avril, went about doing Science Fair. 

She researched something she was interested in at the time (invisible ink) until she had enough information and made enough connections to form a hypothesis and design a custom experiment to test it. 

 

Greek Bowls

This has become one of our favorite meals, and it's so easy to throw together as long as you have all the ingredients. 

Ingredients:

Ground beef (or ground turkey) 

Greek seasoning

Fresh tomato, chopped

Fresh cucumber, peeled (mostly) and chopped

Purple onion, chopped

Tzatziki sauce and/ or Tahini Lime dressing 

Basmati rice

Directions:

Boil the water and start cooking the rice. I make two cups of rice for my family of five, and we have leftovers, which we like to eat the next few days for lunch. 

Brown the meat. I use two pounds of beef for my family of five. We buy ground beef in bulk on sale and then we portion it into smaller quart freezer bags and freeze them in smaller sizes, usually just enough for one meal. I thaw one freezer bag of beef in warm water an hour before dinner, of if I am thinking ahead, I  put it in the fridge to thaw a day or more ahead of the day I cook it. Approximately two pounds of ground beef fits in a quart bag. 

After the meat is brown, drain it, and then return the meat to the skillet. Add Greek seasoning and toss to coat. Turn the heat down so it doesn't keep cooking, but the meat remains warm until the rice is done and all the toppings are prepared.  

While the meat and rice and cooking, chop the fresh vegetables. 

Take out the sauces and/ or prepare those, too. 

For the Greek seasoning, you can buy some pre-made or you can make your own using a recipe online. Sometimes, I just Google "Greek Seasoning Recipe" and then throw all the ingredients in the beef without being exact. It still tastes great. 

For the tzatziki sauce, you can buy a pre-made version or make your own with plain greek yogurt, garlic, lemon, cucumber, and olive oil, etc. Just Google a recipe and use it if it looks good to you. We usually have all these ingredients in our fridge and cabinets as staples, so I can just make some if we are out of it. But if you don't keep Greek yogurt around, just plan ahead and buy some premade. Note: There's a dairy free tzatziki at Trader Joe's for those of you who need that option. 

There is a delicious Tahini Lime dressing at Whole Foods near the fresh vegetables on the refrigerated shelves.  But you can also Google a recipe and make your own Tahini Lime sauce with hummus, tahini, lime, garlic, salt, etc. 

I like to keep the meat in the skillet and the rice in the pot on the stove.We serve ourselves rice and pile on the beef, then we go to the table where the fresh toppings and the sauces are out in the middle of the table. 

Enjoy! 

Nice Cream

Nice Cream. 

Google it. 

You blend frozen banana slices with flavors like vanilla or honey or maple syrup, and you can add frozen fruit or sprinkle on chocolate, etc. 

I got my berry nice cream recipe from Downshiftology's Healthy Meal Prep cookbook. 

Here's a recipe for mint chocolate chip nice cream. 

I put our berry nice cream in little jars (lids very loosely on until they are frozen solid). 

I put these in the freezer so we can enjoy them in single servings. 

Gluten, Dairy, and Sugar Free Nut Butter Balls

Shout out to my friend Wendy Musarella for giving me this recipe a while ago, even before we had to eat gluten, dairy, and sugar free. 

Now I make these nut butter balls once every one or two weeks, so we usually have some on hand for snacks. 

Ingredients-

1 cup of rolled oats

2/3 cup of shredded coconut flakes

1/2 cup any nut butter (I have used cashew, peanut, sunflower, and almond.) 

1/2 chocolate chips or chunks (I use a sugar free dark chocolate bar and chop it up)

1/3 cup agave nectar or honey

1 Tbsp. chia seeds

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. pink sea salt

I mix everything together using my Kitchen Aid mixer with a coated flat beater attachment. Then I use a small thumb press scooper to shape the balls. Note: I actually use the same scooper to make smaller and larger balls so that we have a choice for a smaller or larger snack. I line a plastic container with wax paper and cover it with an air tight lid and store this in our fridge. 

Homemade Dairy-Free, Sugar-Free Caramel Pumpkin Spice Coffee

Ingredients-

Plain Oatmilk (Barista Version)

Sugar-free caramel syrup

Stevia

Pumpkin Pie Extract

Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix

Equipment-

You will need your usual coffee maker and a milk warmer/ frother. Note: A milk frother takes non-diary milks like almond or oat and turns them into something magical. If you are transitioning away from dairy in your coffee, a milk warmer/ frother will make this transition 90% easier. 

How to-

Pour a tablespoon or two of sugar free caramel syrup into the bottom of your favorite mug. I like to make this in my Ember, so it stays hot the whole time I drink it. 

Add a spoonful of stevia if you want it even sweeter. 

Brew or pour your favorite coffee into your mug. We like the Starbuck Holiday Blend K-cups right now. 

Froth and warm 1/2 to 1 cup of oat milk. Note: I like barista version oat milks, because some of the regular oat milks don't froth well in my experience. 

Add a few drops of pumpkin pie extract to your coffee. 

When it's frothed to your liking, add the milk to your coffee right to the top. 

Stir. 

Then sprinkle some pumpkin pie spice on top. 

Enjoy! 

 

Les Mis

We coordinated with our dear friends to see Les Mis together yesterday. The parents took up four seats in one row. Our kids took up the four seats right in front of us on the next row. Afterwards, we all went out to dinner. We left our little kids out of this event, since we knew that the content of this musical was too grown-up for them. 

Some of the songs were very familiar, and I had a basic story line in my mind, but it has been years since hearing the songs or seeing the film, and I had never seen the whole story played out on Broadway. Therefore, I was totally blown away by the spiritual elements and all the redemptive messages. 

From the first note of the orchestra, I was captured and transported. Les Mis is going to be competing with Hadestown as a favorite musical. 

And having just read about justice and equity and forgiveness in Aristotle's Rhetoric this week and then rereading it all yesterday morning before leaving for the play, the timing of the story could not have been more perfect. 

Obviously, I believe in mercy and forgiveness in my mind, because of what Christ has done for my soul and all the Scripture I have read through the years. But interestingly, after reading Aristotle this week, something huge and monumental shifted in my heart. Aristotle actually demonstrates through argument how mercy is quite reasonable given all the reasons why people do what they do, and the fact that we all commit injustices. No one is without sin, which leads back to Jesus and the Scriptures and all I know, because of God's forgiveness to me and His goodness in my own life. So this musical contrasting justice and mercy really landed for me yesterday in a way that only God could orchestrate. 

The wonder of God's perfect justice and mercy astounds me!