Jen shared a link to the funniest blog I have read in maybe, well, ever.  It has potential to make you spit out your coffee so be warned if you come to the computer armed with your cuppa joe!

Bookmobile Day is the highlight of my week. : )  My new favorite food book came by way of the bookmobile this week – Real Food.  It is Nourishing Traditions for Dummies in my opinion which is perfect for me! Many homeschool moms have found that Karen Andreola’s take on Charlotte Mason is a much more enjoyable read than Charlotte herself.  That is how I would sum up this book.

The author’s parents fascinate me as much as the science does. Her father was a tenured university professor at a young age. They left it all to become vegetable farmers in VA in the late seventies. They wanted their children to grow up on a farm and they wanted fresh, wholesome food at the ready. Sounded like a theme song to which I knew the tune. <g>    The author grew up eating their home grown produce prepared in simple ways. As a teen she became a vegetarian and later a vegan and eventually very sick.  Another tune I was familiar with.  She moved to Europe and became a major player in the British farmers market movement. There she was introduced to fresh cream, fish, and farm raised meat along with the produce. She regained her health and began to question how she had become sick in the first place and why these foods, which we were all told are supposed to kill us, made her well again.

Enter Weston Price.

The remainder of the book outlines the history of traditional diets and their staples, explains what is wrong with modern foods, and helps you locate ingredients. The book is heavy on studies but translates them into easy to understand language. I have thoroughly enjoyed it.  Unlike Nourishing Traditions it doesn’t have recipes. That’s ok though. You don’t have to wade through chapters about fermented veggies <g>  She assures us we can still enjoy familiar menus by just tweaking our selections and preparation. 

I found a couple links that have been helpful too. The first is a high protein menu collection with breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus each day. For families I would add more whole grain side dishes (steel cut oats, steamed barley, brown rice etc) to these plans but they are excellent and devoid of problematic ingredients like cream of anything soup that seem to be prevalent in the menu plans available for families.  Also this postpartum diet article was very good. Golly I hope to need that soon……..

Just wanted to send a quick note explaining our absence. The computer hard drive glitched last week and we are in the process of reformatting – minus a LOT of data files and bookmarks. Sigh. We have my mother in law and niece here for Thanksgiving as well. We hope to be back up and running in a few days.

Meantime, check out Louise’s adaptations to the template downloads for her children’s notebooks! She added a thematic watermark to the background before printing the template. Very nice!

And dear friends, PLEASE begin to send me your favorite bookmarked sites! Losing all my favorites is the worst part of a cpu crash for me.

Lisa just sent me a link to her newly finished notebook. She says she has never done anything remotely ‘scrapbook-y’ so take heart all!  This can be done very well even if you don’t have any previous experience. Thanks for the link Lisa!

    The little boys are on a transcription frenzy this week. After several rounds of "how do you ‘pell….." I suggested to Kieran that he might like to take the pink and blue series control cards (the uncut set with the pics and labels) and copy down his favorites. There was dead silence while he worked only broken by his final sigh of satisfaction when he finished all the words he set out to write. It reminded me of Julia Fogassy’s article describing her girls as preschoolers deep in thought while working on different tasks. That "Montessori sigh" is a beautiful thing!

Aidan was similarly inspired though he decided to ‘write some books’. He took his Bob books and began carefully copying the text word for word. This was an all-consuming task as evidenced by the protruding tongue. ; ) Please ignore the syrup spill on his shirt – it was right after breakfast. <g>

   On the Games4Learning yahoo list Heidi shared an idea she heard from a special ed teacher. Save the broken crayons, the tiny ones you would normally throw away, to be used for writing practice. The small size forces the child to use the correct grip (thumb/finger).  They also reminded readers of the various pincer grip activities we have talked about over the yrs like pushpin work, tweezer games, bead sorting. Kristen had a nice idea on her blog.  Her son was busy putting the colored head straight pins into the holes of a sugar shaker lid. All this pre-writing work is so much more fun than teary agonizing over workbooks in the early elementary years.

Some of you are familiar with Terri Camp, homeschool speaker and author.  She has a wonderful site called Ignite the Fire where she shares her vision.  Jen sent me her new site today which has more articles including this one:  Freedom from Fear which was especially encouraging.   She also includes a chapter exerpt about marriage.  (I discovered that Terri is unfortunately no longer married, though from what I understand through no choice of her own.  I found it encouraging that instead of becoming bitter she remains her same positive self, choosing to thrive in less than optimal circumstances. We can all learn from that!)

Along the lines of being  homeschoolers,  wives, and mothers, Elizabeth Foss writes compellingly this week about Who is At Home? reminding us that the key word in homeschooling is HOME. If that falls apart, the rest doesn’t really matter. Too often we run ourselves ragged in the quest for more and better, not realizing we are tearing our own homes down in the process.

A thoughtful post on Loving Our Homes today raises some very important questions for those of us seeking to simplify.  Before we even tackle the specifics of HOW to best do our work we should rightly be discerning which of all our tasks are rightly ours to do. How much which was never intended for us to do has crept into our schedules?  I have always felt that God gave us enough time to do His will….but  that we are not necessarily guaranteed even a smidge more for our own agendas.  With that in mind if our schedule becomes impossible the first thing we do is to take a hard look and prioritize.

Along the lines of WWJD (what would Jesus do?) the question is What Would He Have Us Do?  Which things in our busy schedules are edifying?  Which are truly blessing our families and others? Which are draining us of needed resources – be they physical, emotional, or whatnot – without significantly improving a situation? There are times when a given activity keeps us spinning our wheels. There are times when a given activity does help others, but upon reflection we have to acknowledge that we are not necessarily the only, nor in fact the best, ones available to fill that role.  In fact, we may well be neglecting another task, one for which we are indispensible, while doing this other activity.

Discovering where we are truly indispensible and effective and where we are not is a necessary step towards a saner life imo. We cannot do it all so we must prayerfully consider what we are truly called to do and try to release the rest, even if for a season. This is constantly driven home to me and is likely the biggest challenge I have faced in reaching my goal of simplicity. I feel terribly guilty saying no.  I have come to realize often this has more to do with pride than with genuine feelings of helpfulness. Too often saying yes to an outside task has caused me to neglect a necessary duty for my husband or children. That isn’t true charity, which begins at home.

I am learning.  Slowly. Posts like Mrs. Catherine’s help remind me.

Got the scrapbook album started on the left sidebar.  Will try to add more as time permits. : )

Ok so maybe I am not as gung ho about nature study as I purport to be. Turns out there is a limit.  Our friends own the property directly across from us which is currently vacant land with a giant stock pond. The kids have been watching the tadpoles grow for a few weeks now.  BIG old tadpoles! Like the shooter marbles you use to hit the other ones. Our friends were commenting about where the frogs go when they are frogs.  Do they stay at the pond or wander off?  Ask no more. Please <g>

Questions a queasy pregnant woman does not want to answer:

"Mom, did you lose a frog?" (Z, upon walking down the hall after work)

"How do you suppose they got in the house?"

"It’s like what God did to those people in the bible!"

"Did you know they get to be the size of a man’s hand?"

"How do you suppose they eat mice?"

and my favorite….

"Can we keep it???"

Nuh uh.  Not this time. But if you are less prone than I to vomiting at the sight of them leaping at your slider doors in the rain you might like this site:

All About Frogs

Not much time today so I am sending some links to ponder. This first one Garden of Simplicity talks about different types of simplicity.  This helps me in the whole articulation process. Simple means different things to different people. There are those who choose simplicity as a religious practice, those who wish to be closer to nature, those who wish to be more efficient.  The link gives more varied descriptions but it got me thinking about how although I have been attracted to simplicity movements and resources for two decades now some of them called to me more than others.  Some really weren’t a good fit at all. By expanding my definition of and reasons for seeking simplification of life I can understand that better now. There is a place for all of us who seek saner living however. The main site is full of resources. 

Frugal Simple Life is another site that is full of articles aimed more at the frugality and health aspects of simplicity.