This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual from Soule Mama, one of my favorite bloggers. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. 

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend!

Wordless Wednesday

Don't count on this as a regular thing.  I don't even blog enough as a regular thing.

Wordless (or not so wordless but less wordy) Wednesday brought to you by Park School and the Tulgey Wood Gang with all but the last taken with the Hipstamatic App on my iPhone.

On to lighter topics... The Rebel Bakes

My recent view at the computer.

I made pretzels last week.

Lately I've been wondering what makes me an "everyday rebel" particularly when I'm posting pics of knitting and sewing like I'm some kind of Martha Stewart. Which, I'm not. Actually, I think Martha Stewart is an evil minion of Satan sent to earth to make everyone else feel inadequate in all things domestic. I don't let it get to me though, I'm the queen of the dirty house dinner party. In fact, it is possible that if you end up at my house for a dinner party, you'll find yourself cooking. Or maybe folding laundry so you have some place to sit. Or clearing the table so we can eat on it. But just when I was thinking I was at least trying to become Mrs. Steward, I go and make that last post.

Right. I remember now. One second I'm making pretzels and the next I'm writing about controversial birth topics. And you didn't even hear what I was talking about while I was making the bread. Ah yes, that's right, I do have rebel moments.


I'm working on being content. Not just with stuff but with circumstances. And with who I am. I've long held the belief that if you kind of don't like your circumstances you should learn to be content. If you really don't like them then get off your butt and change them. Reality has served me up a double portion of "It-ain't-always-so-simple" and had me reevaluating. Meaning: If you really don't like your circumstances sometimes you just have to suck it up. Or the nicer way of saying it: develop more contentment. So I've decided I'm discontent with my level of contentment. I'm working on that.

Homemaker is a difficult term for me. It sends shivers down my spine and I feel as though someone has died. I avoid it. I also avoid baking. Not because of shivers up or down my spine but because I'm terrible at it. Did you know that baking is really more science than anything? Chemistry to be exact. This fact explains everything. It's really not the science as much as the directions but science, particularly the chemistry variety, likes directions. I read ingredient lists as suggestions and measurements and directions as a road map: this is one way to get there but there is this other way here and another way here... and maybe we don't really want to go there anyway. But science isn't really about suggestions, not if you don't want to blow things up. Did I mention I was terrible at baking? Jeremy is good at baking. Like, talented, even more so if it involves chocolate. It's kind of disgusting. Disgustingly yummy and his time in the "lab" is making me fat. But I digress.

This last week, I didn't avoid baking. Nope, I rushed in and embraced it head on tackling baked goods that were even lacking in chocolate and, in an atypical but noteworthy event, required following directions! *gasp*

Also noteworthy: they didn't come out of a box.

You have no idea how hard this is for me, the following directions part that is. The box part too for that matter. But I did it and started with a recipe a friend on Facebook shared for soft pretzels. I am never paying $3 for a pretzel at the mall again. I can't believe I'm going to say this but not only were they edible, they were delicious! And yes, I realize I'm bragging but I don't care. I made something yummy that was baked. You bet I'm going to get braggy about it. Oh yeah, and Evangeline helped.


I'm really hoping the whole "you're going to get worms if you eat raw flour" thing I used to hear as a kid isn't true because seriously, Evangeline ate cups of the stuff.


This past week we made multiple French country boule loves, two baguettes which were better than any we've found in stores here, dinner rolls, whole wheat sandwich buns, walnut sticky buns, whole wheat country loaf, savory kolaches, flatbreads, homemade pizza and the soft pretzels. They were all delicious, actually. I couldn't believe it this morning when I looked at my plate for breakfast with an omlet and whole wheat toast and thought "wow, I made all that." The ingredients may have come from the store or farmer's market but the actual cooking and baking was all mine. MINE! Even the bread.



And here's the kicker: it tastes delicious and I have enjoyed the experience.

Move over Martha Stewart! My bread is awesome and piles of laundry is the new shabby chic!


I will continue making bread. The secret? I found out making bread doesn't have to be difficult! Thanks to the recipe I'm following I can see myself making fresh dough to bake into various breads every other day. Courtesy of my neighbor, I'm exploring the recipes in Artisan Bread In Five Minutes a Day and getting inspiration from their wonderful website and blog. This book has quickly moved to the top of my wish list, I'm going to have to return it to my neighbor eventually and I am so going to need my own. Every time I make a batch I am surprised at how easy it is and how fast I'm done.

School snacks ready to be packed up.

I felt all kinds of Little House on The Prairie sending the girls off to their little homeschool classes last week with a snack of homemade bread or pretzels wrapped in red gingham sandwich wraps, fresh canteloupe in Mason Jars, their steel water bottles and a sweet little cloth napkin tucked inside. Holy crap, I need to write something controversial again quick!

Summer, parting is such sweet sorrow

Exploring some math concepts together with The Piano Man from my perspective at the sewing machine.

"School" has started. Our relaxed version of schooling that includes freedom, structure, cultivating individual interests and curiosity, self-pacing, exploration, and exposure to ideas and subjects is under-way as the seasons shift. Not that it ever stopped, we just explored other subjects with a different level of freedom and self-guidance. We are once again participating in 2 different local university style classical education programs for homeschoolers. The classes the girls are taking this year are once again exciting and of their own choosing. Earth Baby is taking Greek 3, Latin 2, Jr. High Spanish, Writing and Literature 7/8 (it's actually high school level, and she loves it!), high school drama, advanced drawing, and another art class. The Storyteller is enjoying a writing class, Spanish, drama, zoology- swimming creatures, art, Latin 1, and Ancient Roman and Greek architecture. Lolie is taking a math games class and she wanted to take a reading class I think mostly to have fun discovering new books. She is also taking drama and Spanish as well as an etiquette lunch to learn how to eat a meal with polite manners. Good thing I guess, she won't get that here! All of them love the 2 days a week managing their own schedules and visiting with friends. Squiggle Bug and I love our time together to do things like make playdough, scones, dance to whatever music we want, build elaborate castles of blocks or whatever strikes our fancy, play with baby dolls, go for long walks and swinging. We like to pretend it is fall and made up a song this week about the leaves crunching under our shoes as we walked and the vibrant colors of the season. We can dream, right?

Squiggle Bug enjoys a hot walk in September doing our new favorite family activity- geocaching!

My sewing machine is whirring, the knitting needles are clicking, books and patterns being marked for ideas, yarn being fingered, etsy and craigslist being perused for more ideas and maybe a few deals, dress-up themes being discussed for October 31st, whispered conversations abruptly halted when another family member walks into the room, secret measuring and knowing giggles with side-ways glances echo off the walls of our home. But the ultimate tell-tale sign of the seasons shifting has been the Christmas music books making their way to the piano as we select what we want to work on this year. I am constantly humming the favorites I want to arrange for us to sing this year and will set about determining keys and parts soon so we have ample time to learn them comfortably.



I refuse to think about the fact that if we are turning our attention forward to Halloween and then Christmas it means that Smunchie is closing in on her first birthday as well. Nope, impossible, she's still a newborn, right?

Though the weather has cooled off a touch with a hurricane that made landfall only 150 miles away, we don't actually expect real change to the weather until well into November at the earliest. A fact we take into consideration when planning our Halloween costumes. Still, it feels as though we have begun to bid summer adieu and from this point out and shorts and t-shirt days will be mere stragglers of an Indian Summer. We pretend that you can't actually wear shorts and t-shirts all year here. I sit here and right this in a tank top and summer skirt. Same outfit I'll probably be wearing at some point in December.

For years we have been listening to the 3 big girls beg to visit a waterpark but the hot temperatures, fair skin, and high cost made us balk at the idea. Thanks to some friends passing along some free-tickets, we were able to have one last horrah this summer by enjoying a day along a chlorinated lazy river, 3-story swirling tube slides, jumping fountains, fabricated showers, artificial wave pool, water obstacle courses and more. The weather had cooled off nicely with only a high around 91 degrees and even for our not-so-summer-fun-loving selves we had a good time. Sunburns were avoided, dehydration kept at bay and we enjoyed our buddy system for the day. Smunchie still hates water so she was less than thrilled but was mostly content to ride along in the lazy river as long as she wasn't getting wet and was able to breastfeed at the same time. It worked. As long as I didn't think about the SouthPark episode with Pi Pi's New York Splash Waterpark too much. *shudder*

I wasn't able to get too many photos, I was far too busy enjoying the waterpark experience but snapped a few of Smunchie staying dry on the beach.

Blog swap

I participated in a post swap today with The Leaky Boob and Authentic Parenting. The journey into Unschooling for our family wasn't one I entered willingly. I resisted homeschooling with everything I had and UnSchooling was even more terrifying. Though we are no longer UnSchooling at the same level or what we'd like, we cherish the year plus that we were able to enjoy the UnSchooling experience and learned a lot from that time that we still utilize in our educational journey today. I hope you take the time to check out the Authentic Parenting blog and become a fan of their Facebook fan page.

Are you crafty?

Have you seen this site? Very cool! They have a Facebook page too. Crafters of all ages will find something to create there. Got to love that!

To Grow Imaginations- part 1

A shoe zoomed by my head with a “swoosh” sound effect from my three year old. I looked up from my perch on the couch just in time to see the tiny homemade fairy with crazy yarn hair and a little stuffed giraffe fly by tucked into one of my daughter’s sneakers. The shoe was followed by a wooden toy boat loaded with more homemade fairies and various small wooden animal shapes bobbing along in the air supported by my 5 year old’s arm. Following the boat was yet another shoe, this one sparkly and red from last year’s Dorothy costume for Halloween with more fairies, tiny people and animals tucked inside with my 8 year old daughter providing sound effects. I paused in my reading to see if I could catch the tale being woven with flying shoes, boats, funny fairies, and wooden animals in the amazing minds of my three daughters. They called back and forth to each other with the voices of fantasy play about a magical land they had to reach before nightfall. Though it was early morning, nightfall was apparently coming quickly judging by the urgency with which they encouraged each other along. I couldn’t catch it all but their land of fantasy sounded truly fascinating.

Like most parents, we’ve experienced the fun of picking out just the right toys for our children for holidays and birthdays only to have our youngsters captivated by the wrapping paper and boxes over the gifts we selected for them. At first I was slightly hurt by their apparent lack of appreciation of all that I went through to find the perfect gift, hide it and then wrap it up for them. Actually, they did seem to appreciate that last part a bit but the toy itself was profoundly neglected in favor of the packaging they had ripped apart. Eventually my disappointment gave way to rationalizing their choice, they were so young and when everything was cleaned up they could see and play with the toy properly. Besides, when they got older their appreciation and anticipation of the gift inside the packaging would grow. I told myself that for quite sometime.

With three children close in age it didn’t take long for the toys to begin pilling up and still the boxes and wrapping paper were the best part. We began to assess the situation of trying to keep the toys caroled and I noticed that I was less than thrilled with them myself. Not just because they were regularly under foot and actually not played with that often but because most of them were an ugly nuisance. The colors seemed tacky, the beeps and whirls down right irritating, the music out of tune, and they seemed to rob my children of something that I couldn’t put my finger on. It didn’t help that there were just so many of them! I was overwhelmed with the shear amount of toys available, how to pick which one to play with at any given moment? Did they even matter any more? One thing was certain, the toys were in the way of our lives but I wasn’t sure how or why.

From the School Room

The Danger at Sea
by Ophélia Martin-Weber
Writing and Literature, 5/6

Me and my friends are fishermen
And we had to leave our women
We will go out into the sea
And see what we can see.
I said goodbye to my wife, Mrs. Ownby
She's pretty as a bee
This story is about me
And I want to tell it to Thee.

When in the great sapphire sea we sail
And meet the dangerous Great Blue Whale
His one and only wish
Is not to eat a single fish,
He'll only eat the floating plankton
And still he weighs an amazing ton!

He rose at last from the ocean floor
His tail then hit our great strong oars.
It made us fall out of our boat
And we tried hard to stay afloat
Above the water was my head to chin
Struggling in the big ocean.

It felt just like an enormous whip
When his mighty tail broke our little ship!
My good and trusted friend named Bill
Was too struggling with a chill;
Oh, I only have one wish,
That nothing will eat us like a fish!

Later that day, it started to rain
Pondering on us, oh what pain!
I asked God to stop the mountainous waves
To rescue us and keep us safe
In the water I was crying
To stay above the water, trying.

Across the sea my dear Ownby,
Crying as much as she can be.
She never listened because she covered her ears
Her cheeks are red from her sweet sad tears,
On her knees her friends saw with their eyes,
Hiccuping and wailing with all her cries!

Here lost in the ocean
My head in the water to my chin.
My good friend died, oh Bill!
That gave myself a dreadful chill.
Then I saw a shark with his gills
Then I was gone, for I was killed.

Life Otherwise

There has been a lot going on. Just like you can feel the buzz in Houston of the earth gearing up for spring, our family has been shifting gears as well. Our nature table has been sorely neglected over the past several months but this undercurrent of change pulls me to do some spring cleaning, to set-up our nature table and to spend more time outdoors.

The girls must be feeling this too. I hadn't planned to do a garden this season, too busy tending to my newest little sapling but today the big girls surprised me and brought out the shovels, hoes and rakes and began turning the garden. It is late in the season but seeing as winter was colder and longer than normal for Houston, perhaps, with a little help from indoor starts and grow lights, we can get the garden going after all.




Helena has taken to mothering her new doll and they explore outside together building forts, climbing trees and going for bike rides. The doll is from Nova naturals fair trade line and the carrier is from Sweet Slings in a Dick and Jane print, Helena's favorite read these days.


The skies entice us to just be.

Sunny skies and mild temperatures beckon to us and our school room moved outside several times this past week. The refreshing breezes inspired poems, fairy house construction, tree climbing, nature observations and adventurous spirits trying new ideas.


My spot:And sleeping next to me...

I even pulled out my sewing machine and cut into some fabric I just love for a simple skirt for Helena's birthday.

It fit me. Had to alter it to fit her before we left for lunch and fancy cupcakes.

Ophélia has given cooking and baking more of a try creating delicious meals (she is specializing in breakfast right now) that we enjoy. The chemistry opportunities afforded in the kitchen are so yummy!

Emerging from our cocoon, we're looking forward to spring.