About that magnesium. I hesitated to add that bit yesterday, but since it is such an integral part of my regimen, keeping me mobile and well, I included mention of it. I'll elaborate some, include a hefty sprinkle of links, and you can explore and see if this is something you'd like to adopt. For starters, it seems most of us are deficient. Symptoms and causes vary: gut absorption issues, low vitamin D, soil depletion, stress, hormonal fluctuations, aging, autoimmune conditions, and calcium levels. I am grateful for my alternative community of midwives way back in the day who pioneered magnesium supplementation. Still, absorption, we are coming to understand, is not a given in all of us. For this reason it is worth exploring the best types of mag for your condition. I've tried many and change them up regularly, just in case. Right now I have a new one that is sourced from a variety of these.
Dr Carolyn Dean, author of The Magnesium Miracle, has a video here which gives more information.
There is reason to believe we can absorb some magnesium through the skin. I did not find that to work as well as the primary source of delivery over time, however. This is an extra for me but it does seem to give special relief to joints and surface muscle. Following my physical therapist's suggestion I began making a routine of soaking in epsom salts or Magnesium crystals several times a week. It was not an instant miracle and I did not rise from the tub healed and whole. I have noticed though, when being faithful, there are more good days than bad and I am able to make progress again with range of motion. And, honestly, a nice warm bath is an inexpensive little luxury that soothes and refreshes tremendously so there's nothing to lose here. Add a few drops of essential oil fragrance and some music on your phone and you have a mini spa break. (side note: I received an actual spa break as a gift once and honestly I'd rather be home and alone any day.)
So that, my friends, is my magnesium public service announcement. All common disclaimers apply. I am not a doctor and do not play one on tv. Do your homework. Experiment. Be well!
I'll also mention I totally understand that access to a bathtub is also not a given. I grew up in a semi-decrepit 1917 house which still had its original clawfoot tub. We did not have a shower then, mind you, nor did we always have sufficient heat in the room, but it was indeed a fabulous tub. For the next two decades we were in and out of midcentury government housing units which often had low, boxy tubs, not given to soaking. It has been a blessing to have had soaking tubs in various rentals and homes over the past ten years when they became less an extra and more vital to my health.
I am sitting at the table in my bedroom (not the bedroom above, which one sister just passed down to another) with the windows thrown open to catch the Indian summer breeze we are getting more often now. It is not yet cool here in the foothills, but there are some hints that autumn is indeed creeping around the corner.
School is back in full swing. There are no longer any little people around the table. All my students can read fluently. They capably perform all four math operations. Instead of phonics we now go over latin verbs and bisect angles together. Although just a few years ago I had no clear vision for how this stage of home learning would look I can happily report it is rich and satisfying, like a daily retreat for Mom. Big kids and big ideas.
This morning finds me, mug in hand, waiting for the highschool football player who was up and out before dawn for his Thursday morning walk through at the stadium, as they do each week ahead of the JV and varsity games. Each week I say my silent prayers that the boys make it through another game without serious injury.
As the years roll by I am reminded that it is rarely those dangers you imagine that are most likely to strike, however. How many times I have told my children. Those fears that haunt you, the ones you dread and wonder over, they seldom come to pass. It is the completely unexpected that blindsides us and alters life in permanent ways.
The other evening I was sifting through the images of home here: dinners in progress, drops of rain falling off the oak leaves, children laughing in the backseat, the dog pulling on the leash. I wondered, is it appropriate it is to share the mundane when there are big decisions to be made, serious suffering around us? Does this appear superficial? Does it imply a disregard or disrespect for meatier issues? This morning I realized these images represent the strategy my grandmother modeled for tackling the big things. It is, in fact, the way I too move through my days now. Those little things are the stuff that keep us grounded in the now, keep us from losing our heads entirely, propel one foot in front of the other. They don't reveal the sum total of our experiences and trials. They do represent the very ways we navigate it all.
We arrange lilies in a vase, season the chops, walk the dog, read a few pages from the novel we are nursing. We notice the cream swirling in the cup, the way the light catches the tendrils of steam winding upwards. Then we take a deep breath and move forward, haltingly or with gusto, as the day may go.
Big kids, big ideas, big challenges, big life - maybe they all call for renewed appreciation of the little things that sustain us.
Sorry. That was lame lol. The girls made some really nice embroidery hoop art pieces at their sewing class last week. The projects called for lots of new techniques for them. They drew their designs on paper and cut them out to trace onto fusible web. They ironed that to the fabrics and cut and ironed the pattern pieces to the their background material. They used a tight zig zag stitch to embroider detail as well as hand sewing some buttons for the Archie dog. He figures prominently in many family art projects. We heart Archie!
How to for similar fusible project we want to tackle here
"Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem or saying a prayer."
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Whether or not spring has actually arrived OUTside this year, the spring flowers have arrived in the grocery stores. Walmart has had tiny pots of single bulbs for as low as a dollar a piece and small bouquets of tulips for under $5. It's a little luxury that doesn't break the bank and brightens corners of the home so well. You can place them bedside or tuck them between two thrifted candlesticks for instant dinnertime charm.
I have mentioned before that floral arranging was not a skill that came naturally to me. It's a work in progress still. I have picked up some little tips from library books and through studying gift arrangements when I have been so blessed. One trick that made a world of difference for a single variety vase is shown on the cover of this book:
You don't need dozens for this to work either. Take a handle of tulips, slip an elastic band around the stems, then gently twist in opposite directions. If your vase is clear you may wish to wrap the band with floral tape. That's all there is to it. As you can see I did not even do that to the small vase above and I still smile every time I pass.
One thing I loved so much during the preschool years were our Montessori trays, self-contained activities presented on a wooden tray complete with all the materials needed. Truth is, I loved dreaming up Montessori trays, but my days were not chock full of empty hours with which to put them together. There was also a good deal of tray straightening and supervision required once they were created.
A mom asked me for more thoughts on this next stage of home learning and family life with no littles underfoot. This would be one of the new and different dynamics. Little people become bigger people who still love their projects. They can now print a tutorial and gather their own materials. In fact, you might stroll out from the laundry room or office and find a scene like this one.
Now instead of demonstrating and directing and overseeing I am invited in to admire and give a few pointers, or better yet, to not give a few pointers. I love to hear their thoughts about what worked, what didn't work as well, and how they might do things differently next time.
PS though? There is still some straightening up to do after. ; )
Decor magazines have long been my "one weakness" as Miss Lane would say. (see below) I seem to have acquired this great love early in life. I am still carrying around vintage volumes my mother purchased in the 70's. True story.
A thrifty homemaking tip is shopping your own house. I do this each season with the magazines. They are not cheap and my style has been pretty consistent over the years. So while I might purchase something new each season, it will join the keepers on display and I will continue to glean idea from them in years to come.
PS if you somehow are not familiar with Miss Lane or if you are as fond of her as we are you will enjoy this:
Friends know my deep, abiding love for Pinterest. Let me tell how much easier homeschooling, homemaking, and all things creative are today! I remember the tremendous struggle it once was having a list of poetry to memorize, for instance, and not being able to track down a particular piece in print. Countless dead ends or false starts accrued simply because there was no way to access all the materials or patterns or whatnot. My gratitude for the internet, generally, and Pinterest, specifically, is therefore profound. So many resources right at your fingertips. You have to be smart about how to gather and make use of them however. Good ideas you cannot quickly access will not likely be put to use. It is wonderful to have it online but since we cannot and would never dream of doing all there is to do it helps to decide which of those fun things would make the most of our month and then start to plan.
I am busy printing out pages and creating binders for each month so our lists are at the ready and can be slipped out when we run to the store or library. Some of things included in our binders are:
recipes we plan to make
craft or decorating projects we hope to finish
books we will look for,
poems we will recite
hymns we will learn
seasonal worksheets
coloring pages
quotes (seasonal or liturgical)
Before I put these in page protectors I snapped some photos of some of our October pages:
There are numerous links to free fall printables, so one of those will be the cover.
One or two crafty or food ideas for each week to include feast day desserts and a birthday cake and a gift.
The book basket is never exhaustive but rather just a smattering of titles pulled from our modest stash which will be supplemented by library books, ebooks, and online articles.
“A true home is one of the most sacred of places. It is a sanctuary into which men flee from the world’s perils and alarms. It is a resting-place to which at close of day the weary retire to gather new strength for the battle and toils of tomorrow."
It might seem superficial to gather autumn ornamentals when the headlines are blaring disaster, to simmer soup when the schools are practicing live shooter drills, to smooth bedcovers when nerves are frayed. I wonder, though, as I pot the mums, if we aren't doing the very best thing we could be under the circumstances. Our families are navigating a loud and unsettling world, daily. We can't fix that by ourselves. We can however create a soft place to land at the close of day, a sanctuary space to launch from every morning.
That's what I am doing. We woke to mass casualty news. We had dental appointments which resulted in prescriptions and an oral surgery consult for one boy. The brakes appear to be shot. The dog got sick on the carpet. So I put on my new dress, kept the news off where children are present, explained extraction procedures in the best possible terms, cleaned dog mess, lent my van to the teens, arranged a sitter for a parent meeting tonight, and made dinner in the instant pot so we have warm food whenever we all gather again from the four corners we are dispersed to today. Pollyanna? Maybe. Or maybe super pragmatic.
"Far more than we know, do the strength and beauty of our lives depend upon the home in which we dwell. He who goes forth in the morning from a happy, loving, prayerful home, into the world’s strife, temptation, struggle, and duty, is strong--inspired for noble and victorious living. The children who are brought up in a true home go out trained and equipped for life’s battles and tasks, carrying in their hearts a secret of strength..." - JRR Miller
I can't fix all the things. I can do the little things that will send us all out again tomorrow with that secret of strength which is home.
People talk about it hypothetically - the things you'd grab in a fire. For most of us that remains an intellectual exercise, the kind of thing you muse over when you are feeling particularly introspective. It became a very real and concrete discernment for our family this week.
We often sleep with our upstairs bedroom windows open when we can catch a breeze on summer nights. We opened them wide and fell into bed Monday night. We had been on the go all weekend, staying up late and busy each day. A good night's sleep seemed promising as the wind picked up some. Before long however the canyon gusts began to howl, forcing my husband to go down and secure the patio furniture. The ruckus outside kept us sleeping with one eye open.
When morning finally came we hit the lights and noticed they were dim. We were groggy from the restless night and started to explore other rooms to see what was happening. Every fixture was at half strength. We were beginning to gather in the kitchen sorting things out when the power cut entirely. This has happened before during windstorms, annoying, but temporary. My husband opened the laptop to check our power company website to get an idea of the scope. I was kicking myself for not having powered down my computer the night before.
We started to make adjustments to our morning routine to get ready without electricity. I was lighting the stove manually and trying to get some coffee figured out when my husband called me outside. "Doesn't that look like smoke moving in?" Well, it did. But in the West there are often hazy skies when the wind picks up. It carries in smoke from distant fires. During dry seasons it sometimes kicks up a lot of loose surface dirt into the air. When you live with a military man you learn to consider all the logical explanations and most importantly you don't panic. So I didn't.
A few minutes later he had checked the front of the house. "It's definitely smoke over in the canyon," was his first thought. "It's probably not as close as it looks," was the next. I walked to a higher window while he went down the culdesac. It was in fact as close as it looked. But I was still not supposed to panic. We heard sirens. They probably had it under control. Might be a house fire which the wind was aggravating.
While we reassured ourselves with that thought there was a knock at the door. At that point my stomach gave a lurch. A runner was out early morning and said there was a fire spreading up the mountain and while there was no official emergency response in the neighborhood yet he was waking everyone up and spreading word.
"Should I start to pack things?" No, my husband said. He would go investigate. I got up the rest of the children however and had everyone dress and find shoes while he went to talk to the neighbors again. He came back shaken up. The fire was spreading rapidly given the high winds. We should stay calm, but begin to start moving essential items "just in case." I grabbed the important paperwork from the safe. Then started to unplug hard drives and put photo albums into boxes. He didn't return but the children were watching over the ridge out back and bringing back all sorts of bad news. A house had caught fire and had burnt before their eyes. The church was filling with cars.
I brought the little girls up to the house. Our incredible view was turning into a horror show and it was too much for them. The dogs were also getting frantic with the smoke. We kenneled the little dogs and stuck the kennel in the truck. Husband came in and said fire crews were working their way up the hill and we should seriously gather anything else we needed. Abbie Rose clutched her bear and held tight to Archie's leash while her eyes began to well up. Tess was working very admirably to be "big" and not freaked out. The others were silently packing their bags.
I made another round through the house. The problem with filling a home with only things that have personal value to you is that everything then feels important. I looked at the walls, the drawers, the counters, filled with items which were used by my grandparents, my mother, my inlaws. Things my children grew up with. Things my husband and I grew up with. Things we bought at different duty stations. It all meant something but it could not all go. I made some quick decisions about what precious items could fit in the cars.
The next thing we knew there were bull horns outside and another knock. Evacuate. We had a little bit of time but we should start heading out. We stopped for a moment and reached for a holy card a priest had given us earlier this year. Pestilence and...fire? We repeated the words of the prayer and put the children in the cars. Four cars, six kids, three dogs, a cuckoo clock, our crucifixes, several hardrives, and countless albums. Then my husband and I walked back in. We each took a jar of holy water and went to opposite ends of the house sprinkling each room. I set the holy card down, crossed myself, and we looked around one last time, making peace with whatever we might return to.
We all drove off together and traveled to a grocery store parking lot where we stood stunned as the cloud grew behind us. What should we do? Where should we go? That question was answered when old friends called and said to go to their house to wait. With lunch in tow we detoured around the road closures over to their place, got the children settled in the basement away from windows to play pool, and the older set of us watched our mountain burn from their deck. We would see smoke die down only to reappear in another spot or a huge burst of black billow up as a building was struck. The ebb and flow was wrenching.
We started calling around for hotel rooms when finally the fire crews began to get the blaze out of the residential areas. In time a few streets were permitted to return. Ours was one of those. We were lucky. Many did not go back for days. Six families have no homes to return to. And of course we know how truly fortunate we are to be in the midst of an isolated tragedy of relatively limited scope in comparison to the devastation happening around the country. Should the worst have hit we have insurance which wouldn't replace the memories but would have prevented homelessness for us. Many worldwide are not so lucky.
In the end we were spared the worst case scenario. We left our things near the door in the event the fire once again expanded with the expected coming wind. It did not come however. The air and ground crews have worked every day since. We watch them with gratitude and awe. We also look at our neighbors with similar respect and thankfulness. They were clearheaded and pulled together. Before we all left people were opening their swimming pools. Helicopters used them to refill water buckets to battle the blaze. It was incredible to see everyone pull together.
It is hazy in the evenings and, although the ground is charred in places, it is still a wonderful place. We are grateful to be at home with our familiar things in place. They are held loosely though. At some point all of us will be required to let them go - maybe sooner, maybe later. We aren't taking any of it with us either way. So we are catching our breath and hopefully taking a quiet weekend to put it all in its place again, gratefully, and focusing once more on what really matters - those people who traveled out of this neighborhood with us. Together we pray for those who are or soon will be facing their own worst fears as storms rage this weekend and earthquakes shake the ground. It's all so fragile. And its probably important we never forget that.
Tess took her first sewing class away from home this month. She made a notebook cover with pockets and ribbon tie. Her overall impression was that there was a lot of pinning, cutting, and ironing involved and it was worth it.
Following this success she and her little sister are enrolling in the full semester course starting soon. It is so very exciting for me to see which directions each child goes creatively and to be able to accompany them on their way.
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Weaver; Weaver: ART WITH A PURPOSE Mennonite publication. Outlines one project per week in basic coloring, drawing, grids, lettering, painting. Inexpensive and enjoyable in worksheet format.
