from the kitchen:

Sourdough everything.  A friend sent me some starter and I am trying to get up to speed about its care and feeding. I actually have no idea what I am doing but hey, I've never let that stop me.  Family reports that the pancakes today were "much better than usual," which I think is a compliment.  

wearing:

Pajama pants.  Not gonna lie.  We started this quarantine thing more official like but we are in more self comfort and support mode now. After a late movie with the girls I let them sleep in today so I got semi-dressed and ready to face only the fam anyway.

The girls and I had a talk about some positive, creative steps we could take during lockdown and they decided to sew.  We are going to get the machine set up and work on some paper bag skirts. Looks like we will be making or mail ordering spring outfits this year. 

watching:

Pride and Prejudice with the girls last night.  I love the Kiera Knightley version. It was two hours of complete escape. 

The Office with the guys.  Often.  This plague may seriously go down as The Office Pandemic for us.  

outside:

Most of the snow is melted.  At the moment.  It's spring in the Rockies and it's quite likely that was not the last hurrah.  Snow means green grass later though. Meantime, the stellar jays are making a clatter out back.   Tiny finches have made an appearance.  We are going to try to get a bird feeder set up by way of first steps to bring more winged creatures to the yard.  

The deer have been feeding out near the fence line. I never tire of them. 

From the learning room:

The Current War was a hit with me anyway.  We covered electricity and circuits in middle school science this month.  Youtube Kids has many short video demos to flesh that out. 

Still on our WWI study and we hit the Romanov family and the Russian revolution.  The girls revisited Anastasia and read about all the Anastasia imposters and how the mystery was sadly resolved with the advent of DNA testing. 

around the house:

We bought a clipper set to groom the dogs ourselves.  (Insert dramatic music here.) The groomer is closed and the dogs cannot wait weeks or longer.  Again, YouTube to the rescue.  See above comment under "from the kitchen."

reading:

We began The Door in the Wall together.  It is a fast read with lots of spiritual and practical relevance to our current plague. Resources we are using include…

Door in the Wall study guide

Bubonic Plague video

Spanish Flu for Kids here and here

Also doing a personal reread of Simplicity Parenting more on that next

big thought:

As with any public crisis I have returned to and referred folks to Kim John Payne and Simplicity Parenting.  Highly recommend a listen to Podcast #5 lower on the page entitled Filtering Adult Information is More Important Now Than Ever Before.  I love this man.  He has such a heart for children and families. It is easy to let ourselves off the hook and blame circumstances beyond our control but we need to sincerely consider the ways we might be contributing to their stress.  There are simple steps we can take to get our children and ourselves through crises like these. He urges us to consider whether our words are true, kind, necessary, and securing. I know its a temptation for me, especially with the adult kids handy, to jump into conversation without that consideration. 

Also included in the podcast is good info about pacing and imagery in contemporary cinematography and its impact on young brains. 

It's been a long time since I have soaked beans and worked them up into purees and soups. It was such a familiar part of my life for so many years.  I knew right where to find the hand lettered recipe, so familiar to a younger version of myself.  That me wandered the aisles of small health food stores in the late 80s, soaking up the scents of natural soaps and dry goods bins and herbs in big glass jars which were weighed out on a kitchen scale and bagged to bring home. Later, babies in tow, friends and I would gather every month to unload the co-op semi truck in a church parking lot and separate our orders into piles while the children played.  The older kids remember being rewarded with fruit leathers or natural licorice at the end of those long days.  We coop women were all so very different. There were hippies in head scarves and tank tops working side by side with Mennonites and suburban moms like me.  I think I knew then what a remarkable thing it was: the unity we had. We were driven to live simply, eat clean, and raise happy children.  

This week finds us in the middle of a quarantine and the middle of lent.  People are growing tired of boiled eggs and tuna, but we can't just drop by the store every few days.  I turned to the pantry.  The beans were measured out into my Instant Pot for a presoak.  The water was drained and seasonings added for a second pressure cook.  Finally the beans ran through the food processor. The whole process was wrapped up in one morning instead of babysitting the soaking and simmering beans for many hours. There was no chance I might forget and let the water boil dry, scorching the bottom of the pan. It's a whole new world, for better and worse.

I am grateful for technology that enables me to meet my goals but also for hand written recipes with little, imperfect doodles along the edges. I'm glad of the reminder that before there were glitzy websites there were just home cooks, experimenting, trying to nourish the people they loved. And it was enough.  

I cook differently today.  My younger children have a different palate due to my autoimmune conditions and things we have learned in the years since.  I don't necessarily wish to return to the "good old days" when I was very sick, but rather bring the best of those ideals and practices into my life today.  Especially during lent, old favorites return to the rotation. 

"There's a reason certain books become classics… We return to great–or favorite–books over and over again, poring over the words, folding over page corner after page corner, underlining key passages and making marginal notes to reinforce our understanding. It's the same with cookbooks, only with the addition of random ingredient dribbles and sauce stains supplementing our other forms of commemoration. While we occasionally try something new, we always return to our comfort zone, knowing that pretty much everything we need to make one of our favorite recipes is right there on the shelf." – Bookslut

There are good days and bad days in quarantine.  Yesterday was the latter.  Between new technology, lots of big people in close quarters, job layoffs, and general frustration it was a very long Tuesday. We did get a good BBQ Pork Loin in the crockpot, I worked out, and finally at day's end a couple of the big boys squeezed around the laptop with me and watched The Office reruns. Wednesday has been better to us. Some lately's in Daybook style, since this template seems to be a fave….

From the kitchen:

A surprise hit was Leftover Oatmeal Muffins.  We toss far more food than is thrifty or right, but no one likes cold oatmeal even if I reheat it.  It is a shame to see wholesome whole grain goodness go to waste though.  I did not have high hopes for these but can report they were light and flaky and devoured with gusto. 

Watching: 

BBC's They Shall Not Grow Old was superb.  I am not sure all my kids agreed, but I could listen to those men for hours. It was far more graphic than expected but did not seem to faze anyone but me. We watched Sea Biscuit earlier in the week, which came later chronologically, and will be trying to find a few more family friendly WWI views like Anne of Green Gables and War Horse next.  If you have favorites do send. 

Reading:

Curious tidbit from The Easter Book…

It has been a most….penitential…lent so far. Tess completed a report on St Therese today after reading a biography which prompted a heart to heart about resignation to Divine Will and redemptive suffering and so on. That bit about quarantine though?  Wild coincidence isn't it? sigh.  

Listening to:

We caught some Andrew Lloyd Webber live this morning. Shared a little background with the younger kids.  Clearly we have a cultural knowledge gap there.  Trying to decide which musical to watch with them.  We are not terribly musical-ish.  

Towards wellness:

Making liposomal vitamin C.  

Just will mention that, despite what it looks like, if you imagine this to be anything like, say, Tang, just put that thought out of your head.  Whooooo-eeeee.  

Barre Workout  a fave, even if it challenges my balance skills. 

Sent boys out to the lake today. Trying to assure big kids are getting sunshine daily.  Though I also made them text me pics of the park they went to as proof they are still social distancing.  I'm a lotta fun that way.  

"If y'all go together you will look like a gathering!  How will you prove you aren't friends hanging out?"

"Mom.  MOM.  We all look alike."

"Good point.  Have fun."

From the learning room:

Ukulele lessons online

My few years hanging out with Leo have come to a close. I wrapped up my long, drawn out War and Peace project last night.  Honestly I don’t even know how I feel about it.  Tolstoy famously quips that pure, unadulterated sorrow is as impossible as pure, unadulterated joy.  In the same way I can say I feel great kinship with Tolstoy, his ideas, and his characters today.  I also can say the man’s pedantic, fatalist rambling  made me sometimes want to pull my own hair out.  There was a lot of that.  Still I read.

And read.

And read.

At times completely enthralled and other times not even sure why I kept trudging on besides the fact I felt deeply connected to the people and committed to seeing it through. 

I ended up seeing through War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Resurrection, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich and am now applauding myself enthusiastically because first, I am not that smart and second, my attention span is about as impressive as my energy level as a rule. It was a goal set and met though – despite all that life threw at me during the project – and that is worth noting with satisfaction.  

It is both sad to finally be walking away from these people and places and exciting to consider where to go next. My plan is to read a few of the boys’ high school lit novels which I have not yet read so we can hash those out better.  Sometimes I read ahead of them, sometimes I read aloud to them, and sometimes they summarize what they are reading.  It makes for a family book club of sorts. 

Years ago I was inspired by Joyce Swan working through her oldest’s assignments each evening so she could teach and troubleshoot more effectively.  Constant relocation and many years of night nursing prevented me from doing this as well as I had hoped.  There are still children to teach however, and if I can’t get to all the work ahead of them it is still helpful to do what I can.  Reading is a wonderful way to come together with your big people no matter where they spend their days.  It will be good to reconnect in this way. 

Tolstoy advises: A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.”

And so it is here. I’ve tried not to look at the whole journey and just tackle each day’s leg of it.  If I fell a bit short sometimes, I went a little further the next day. This is the way we chip away at the classics.  Eventually you look up and an epic work is under your belt.