Stop...Drop...and Roll

One requirement in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's homeschooling laws is that you must teach fire safety. This morning, W. decided to don his hat, and pretend to be a fire fighter.  

I love opportunities like this one.  

We talked about stop, drop, and roll.
Don't forget to cover your face.

W. has some experience with this method (not actual hands on, but more of a theoretical knowledge luckily) so he taught C. about it.  

Then W. started coming up with crazy scenarios...

"C...a dragon is attacking you and your hair is on fire...what do you do...stop, drop, and roll while I fight the dragon and put out the fire."

Apparently, fire fighters have a side job of dragon slaying.

The forest for the trees...

Yesterday as I lay on the floor after battling some flu-ish sickness and the laundry at the same time I breathed deep and tried to restore. 

I lay there thinking about something that City Husband once said during one of his first visits to our place.  He was standing in the kitchen and he remarked how one of his favorite things was that the view out of every window was just trees...thats all you see is trees.  Its true.  But for the several years I had lived here I had thought very little about that.  So consumed with house building and farming and child caring and whatnot...I had certainly fallen in love with our land...but had never really looked at it through that viewfinder.   And so I am thankful for my brother in law whose wonderful perspective, undoubtedly shaped by his city-view childhood, has provided me with a new and rejuvinating perspective on my space.

I am thankful for those moments.  The ones when you see the same situation, the same view, through another lens, another angle or a shifted perspective.  Sometimes it is easy to find, and sometimes it takes the eyes of another person or being splayed out on the floor to get us there. 

Try it today!  Squint your eyes, breathe deep.  Turn your head and then look again.  Be flexible where you are normally rigid.  Smile when you normally don't.  Lay down on the floor and admit defeat and see what victories come your way. 

(and when my camera stops acting up I'll share my view with you....)

Last night I dreamed of homework...

My dear little C. woke us up this morning (at an unspecified o'dark o'clock) with a happy look on her face.  She then proceeded to tell us of her dream.  "It was wonderful...I dreamed of...homework."  She loves doing "work." I asked her what homework she was thinking of...

"North America...Africa...Australia...and Antarctica...these are the seven continents in our whole wide world..."

I am so proud of my little ones.

We have been studying the globe.  

I made up a song about the continents.

I find my kids remember things better in song.  

Driving home last night they burst out into song (alright, C. started singing and then she begged W. to sing too...being a decent older brother he obliged but reminded her it was "just this one time.")

(Sung to 10 little Indians)

"North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica

These are the seven continents, in our whole wide world."

Grandma has also been doing work with the kiddos when I go to work.  C. always wants to show me what she has done with great pride.

Scrumptious Saturday

Camera down...no pictures. I am sorry.

This week I made something yummy.

I made...

Stuffed Chicken

2 stalks celery

1/2 an onion

Bell's seasoning (taste varies...I use lots, it's poultry seasoning at it's best in my humble opinion.)

salt

pepper

1/4th loaf of bread ripped into quarter sized pieces.

1/4 cup butter

Milk (not sure how much)

2 lbs boneless chicken breast (leftovers are intentional in this case) skin is up to you.

Melt butter in a skillet.  Add the onion and celery.  Saute until soft.  Take off heat.  Put bread into a large bowl and add veggies and any butter in the pan.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and bell's seasoning.  Pour in milk until everything is firm but wet.  Cut breasts to make a pocket (horizontally about 3/4th of the way through)  Shove stuffing in and place on an oiled cookie sheet stuffing up.  Cover and bake at 400 for about 45 min (internal temp of 170) taking the cover off for the last 15 min to let it brown up a little.  We had green beans from the freezer with it, and that's that.

I was able to source everything pretty locally...the grain was raised just north of here to make the bread.  The chicken was raised also just north of here.  The celery and onion came from a local farmer, and the butter came from the Amish community near here.  The milk came from a little west of here.  And the Bell's seasoning is from away...sorry I have to import it on my journey to visit my family.  It's that good.  Salt and Pepper...it also comes from away as does my yeast for the bread (but the honey in it is local.)

The hats have it!

I did it.

I made a hat for each of my family members in time for Christmas.

The boys' matching hats are a lovely variegated blue cotton blend with a red alpaca wool stripe.  On the husband's hat is also a ring of gray cotton.  I kind of like how the blue made stripes.  C's "pink" was knitted using pink cotton and a synthetic pink yarn as well at the same time...

I learned a lot while making these...

1. always check to see what side you are knitting on.

2. don't use cotton on wood needles

3. DPN's aren't as scary as they seem

4. I can do it.

Postscript:
The pattern for the boys can be found here
The Boyfriend Hat
And C's hat can be found here
note it looks nothing like how her's turned out...it is worth a try.
Twist and Tie Hat

New Year's Goals...Or...I like me just the way I am

Here it comes...the "new year how can I improve me" entry.

  I have some things I'd like to accomplish this year. 

Yes, like many I see a new year as a blank slate (as Anne Shirley would say "with no mistakes in it...yet.") But at the same time I feel a little silly.

 I am who I am.

  No more, no less.  

I know I will never be a size 4, be graceful (my grandmother used to call me "crash, bang, boom" for a very good reason) or have the perfectly clean home with the perfectly mannered and behaved children.  I may never have a larder filled with the fruit of my summer labor, grown, harvested, and preserved perfectly and the time to accomplish all of this and more. 

After all, I am quite comfortable being just quirky old me. 

As 30 draws ever nearer, I realize I have been perfecting the art of being me.

I am a piece of art.

Yes, I am an oddball.

I like doing some very odd things for where I am. 

Nobody I know here knits, keeps chickens, or cans things.

Some keep gardens...I know a few that home school.  

At the same time, I see room for learning.

Ah life, that never ending classroom.

Instead of making resolutions, I'd like to improve my knowledge of things.

To expand my horizons.

To become an even better version of me.

Citysister 2.0

Homesteading

Weigh everything we grow.

(Just to know...price it out...maybe I'll make a tally and let you in on it.)

Expand the garden so that it can support most of our veggie needs for the year.

(Yummy and delicious and very nutritious.)

Work on learning how to garden around the year.

(Cold frame, here I come.)

Can, Freeze, make pickles.

(Expand upon what I already do.)

Home life

Learn how to bake with alternative sugars (aka honey and agave syrup)

(In hopes that someday we have bees when we have more land.)

Improve my organizational skills

(As I can be really unorganized...but that's a secret.)

Minimize the clutter

(again with the organization...I can't even organize my thoughts here.)

Have a yard sale

(To get rid of all that aforementioned clutter.)

Knit a sweater and a pair of socks...oh how I wish for the perfectly hideous stripy long socks.

(The husband wishes for a cardigan with leather elbow patches.)

Homeschool

Expand my homeschooling network

(I am having a hard time finding like minded people around here.)

Further improve my organization.

(Again with the organization.)

Be the perfect mom 

(hahhahhahahahah) 

Overall, I am very thankful for the last year.  We set aside some worries and have begun to really realize what is important in life.

I have had this lovely chance to reconnect with my sister as well.  

As well as with those people that read this.  

Thanks for coming by and visiting with us.

Scrumptious Saturday...Happy New Year

As the sun set on 2010, I looked out my kitchen window.  I had to capture it.  I find myself spending lots of time in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, puttering while on the phone...I love that I have a window that looks over the sunrise, and another that looks over the sunset, as usually I get to see both.  My kitchen looks over the gardens and the chickens.  A nice reminder of where the food I cook comes (or could come) from. A big goal for next year is to grow a larger percentage of our food.  I'm already itching to get out there.

This time of the year we have so much cranberry sauce.  It's winter comfort food.  I love mixing it with chicken or spreading it on bread.  I planted 10 little cranberry plants last fall.  I can't wait to see what happens! I was reading Cooking Light, and found this recipe...it appeals to my cranberry love, even though I am not a big drinker.

Cranberry Kir Royale

(from Cooking Light, November 2010)

1/2 C. whole berry cranberry sauce

3/4 C. Vodka

Mix and let sit in the fridge for 4 days.

Put a little in the bottom of a champagne flute and then pour on the champagne (OK sparkling wine... or whatever)

We have a tradition of having a picnic of duck on New Year's Eve.  This year we had Roasted Duck Adams County (the recipe is from the Bed and Breakfast cookbook of Gettysburg) as made at the Dobbin House in Gettysburg (my favorite dish I've had there.)  The whole recipe is quite convoluted so I will not write it here.  And as our picnic is late at night, I couldn't get natural light...and the pictures were too yellow to show.  Oh well, it was delicious.  As a side, I made bacon cheddar smashed potatoes.  

Everything is better with bacon.