tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25284700338116739802023-11-20T12:53:37.662-06:00Ruth's Rambles......about adoption, parenting, homeschooling, and life in general!Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.comBlogger1425125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-33067455457659166472022-06-04T23:14:00.002-05:002022-06-04T23:18:39.720-05:00Progress Report - And Wisdom "Without Finding Fault"<p>More than seven months ago, I gave my first update on my kids' schooling situation. School seemed to be a good fit for all three kiddos in those early days. For the most part, that is still true.</p><p>But wow, it's been a hard winter. For reasons I mostly can't talk about publicly, this has been the hardest winter I've had as a parent (and that's saying something, given how hard some of our early years were when Seth and Lizzie first joined our family), and one of the hardest seasons of my adult life. Each of the kids has had a major crisis (or more) to navigate, I've felt fairly alone in how to help them through their unique situations, and I have been challenged to the core in how I parent my beloved offspring.</p><p>But yeah, the transition from homeschooling to being schooled within the school system has gone ok or very well - especially for Seth and Lizzie, who have had essentially wonderful schooling experiences these last almost-ten months. Until about a month ago, at which point Lizzie began to tire a little of the homework and other expectations, she would gladly have given up her weekends if it meant that she could stay in school for those two extra days every week - that is how much she has loved being there this year. Seth is, of course, much quieter about his day-to-day life, but I do believe it has gone very well, and his teachers and the administration speak extremely positively of my boy; my boy, who has undergone so many challenges over the past almost-eleven years, is doing a bang-up job of his academics. He, too, was ready for this academic year. I'm so pleased for them both.</p><p>Matthew has had a different experience altogether. His year started out really well, but early on in October, something shifted for him, and his year got suddenly complicated and difficult. I won't go into details here, but I sure wish I could, because so often I process issues through the writing down of them. At any rate, he graduated from his high school in mid May - although he is still finishing up two homeschool courses.</p><p>I had anticipated that, for me, this academic year would be a very different one from the past decade of years, because there were three days every week that I had a number of hours to myself. Sadly, as mentioned above, it was a very complicated and difficult year, and to be frank, those hours never fully materialized, and I struggled heavily with the kids' various issues, and my own grief about so many things. In addition, Geoff and I disagreed on many things this winter, mostly related to decisions and crises about the kids, and that took a significant toll on me, and on our relationship. I ended up feeling very lonely, and also very alone, as I processed and dove head-first into the various issues I was confronted with.</p><p>Thank God for God. I know that sounds odd, but truly, thank God for being the Master of the Universe, and for belonging to me...or maybe, more rightfully, it's me that belongs to Him. That God of mine so often gave me words when I had none, ideas where my own failed to materialize, and grace beyond grace. There's a verse in the bible that has been super meaningful to me this winter, and it's a popular one from the book of James, in chapter 1, verse 5: "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." Now, I've read that verse probably hundreds of times over the course of my lifetime, and it is a verse commonly used. But what I've never really even noticed was the words in the middle: "...without finding fault." Often in my life I have felt that I have had no business asking God for wisdom because I have managed to mess things up and maybe even done damage to a situation with the wrong words, wrong attitude, and so on. I work really hard at being an intentional parent, but I'm definitely not a perfect parent, and I've felt guilty asking God for help when it's just me messing things up. But when I, this winter, 'discovered' the words "without finding fault," it was as if I'd never read it before, and I was suddenly free! 'Without finding fault' means that no matter what I've done to mess things up, God doesn't take stock of my errors and my lack of judgment. It means that when I ask Him for wisdom, He turns a blind eye to my lack, and simply heaps His wisdom into my head and into my soul. In the deepest depths of various crises this winter, I have taken those words to heart, and have asked God for wisdom and clarity despite my own shortcomings, despite the fault that should disqualify me from receiving perfect wisdom...and He delivered! There were seriously so many occasions when, in conversation with one of the kids, for example, during a crisis or otherwise very difficult moment, I would be at a complete stalemate in terms of the next words to come out of my mouth; I would simply, and silently, pray that God give me wisdom without an accounting of my fault. And every. single. time. He met my need. As noted above, words came out of me that I didn't know I had; ideas rolled into my head that I've never thought of before; empathy poured out of me in exactly the right moments; and I felt suddenly and inexplicably ok, even in the center of the crisis. It was stunning at times. Stunning. So stunning, in fact, that I needed to write this down here - to mark the many moments when He didn't account for my faults but, in fact, rained wisdom down onto my battered heart. </p><p>I have to believe that things will be ok in the end...I think they will be. But I don't know how long it will yet take until that end point, and the reality is that some things have shifted permanently. That's more to grieve and I need to do that. As I look forward to next year, Seth and Lizzie will continue on in full-time schooling, and Matthew will be in his gap year (hopefully away somewhere, for a different life experience...but that's yet to be finalized). I'm really hoping that this will provide me with that time I've been aching for - time to grieve what needs to be grieved, and time to figure out what the next chapter will look like for me. After a tough season, I'm looking forward to it.</p><p><br /></p>Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-7046986563757656072021-09-24T22:17:00.000-05:002022-06-04T22:18:02.309-05:00Too Little, Too Late?<p>The kids have been in school for about two weeks now. And their transition has been going really well, I think. For Matt, there's been little adjustment because he did a few courses at this school last year already. He's good - and making some friends as well. Seth doesn't talk about school very much, but he seems ok - he doesn't resist going in the mornings, and his body language is pretty good when walking into the school. And the words that he <i>does </i>offer up aren't complaining words; so that's important too. And Lizzie is <i>loving</i> school so far. I see her enjoying the routine and structure of it all, the people she is starting to befriend, and the volleyball that she's trying out for. She doesn't even mind the homework (yet!). Lizzie has always been big on a need for structure (something that I didn't offer as much of as she likely would have preferred), so I think this is going to continue to be a good thing. So yeah, it's been a good start to school.</p><p>The ease with which my two younger are adapting has had me questioning whether I should have enrolled them in previous year(s) already. I have questioned whether I've held them back in any way from something that they might have benefited from earlier. This thought has given me a few pangs over the past few weeks...and earlier in the summer, too, admittedly, as I pondered this possibility. </p><p>Should I have stopped h/schooling them earlier? Maybe. </p><p>But as I've been working it through in my head, I have come to think a few things:</p><p>* First, I can't turn the clock back anyway, so even if it was a mistake to wait until now to enrol them, I can't do anything about it other than feel regret - and since when is regret productive??</p><p>* Second, it's occurred to me more than a few times that I'm so thankful that they weren't registered in school during the past 18 months, when the pandemic made school a miserable and complicated thing. My kids would merely have joined the ranks of the millions of kids not even being able to attend school.</p><p>* Neither of my younger kids would have been prepared academically to join the school system any earlier. As I mentioned in my post last month, Lizzie just caught up to 'grade level' this summer. So it would have been difficult for her/them to join any sooner. As it is, Lizzie has been delighted to learn that the math she is doing in these early days of the school year is familiar to her and not too difficult. Given that Math is her toughest subject, it's lovely watching her feel confident about what's she's already learned and prepared for.</p><p>* I know this issue ins't about me, but truly I don't think <i>I </i>would have been ready to send them to school any earlier than this year - even this year's decision has been painful enough! Heck, I thought I'd be h/schooling them right through to the end of high school! It was a really hard decision-making process to go through, to make such a big change in our life's plan.</p><p>* My two younger have had so much to deal with over the decade since they joined the family. Being adopted, they've simply had (still do have) more issues to deal with than the average kid; and being adopted as 'older children' left them with more layers of the onion to deal with. The priority for me, with Seth and Lizzie, has always been to cultivate as much attachment as possible, so that they could go forth into the world as secure and sure-footed as possible. I have definitely made mistakes along the way, but that's always been a major priority for them. I don't know that I could have let them go any earlier than this year, because I didn't see them as being developmentally or emotionally read until now. And now I think they're far more ready, and able, to fly...to find their places in the world...and to have other people provide educational input into their lives. </p><p>So...</p><p>Even though it gives my heart a pang to know that they're enjoying school, even though it's sometimes hard to hear Lizzie talk about how much she is liking school, even though it's tough to hear Seth say that he'd never h/school his kids - in my heart of hearts, I know that it's been the right decision to school them at home until now, just like I know that this is the right time for them to be there. The timing for their being in school is perfect. It's because they're ready for it that things have started out so well.</p><p><br /></p>Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-73693920583323698522021-08-08T09:18:00.009-05:002021-09-04T14:38:06.208-05:00Change is Coming<div>There are changes happening in our little family unit; big changes, from my perspective.</div><div><br /></div><div>About six months ago, in February, I began my annual prayer time about the 2021-2022 academic year, which will begin about a month from now. We've been homeschoolers throughout my kids' school life, but every year I've spent time in February and March praying about the upcoming academic year, looking for God's plan in our academic ventures. Early on in our h/schooling journey, I chose February and March to pray about the following year because it's usually around the end of March that I've begun planning for the following h/schooling year. Our decision to homeschool has always been confirmed as the right path for our family.</div><div><br /></div><div>I expected the same result this year; that our decision to continue h/schooling would be confirmed. To my surprise, however, something different began to emerge. As I was praying about Seth's upcoming year, still seven months into the future, I struggled even knowing how to pray for him. The previous year had been a difficult one for Seth, and I was low on creativity in terms of how to provide him with schooling that worked better for him. It felt agonizing to pray for him this year, and I was so confused about how to proceed in his best interests. I desperately wanted to make things better for Seth. To my surprise, while I was praying about/for him, a word flashed across my mind with vivid clarity and unmistakably bright yellow in colour. "Freedom" was the word on my mind, that first prayer time, and at subsequent times. I knew precisely and instantly what that word meant, although I initially resisted it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let me back up for just a moment. There is an independent, private Christian school in the downtown of our city that was founded about three years ago by a friend of mine. It's a tiny school (I think it had around 22-24 kids registered in the 2020-2021 school year) and it is mostly attended by high school kids who have emigrated to Canada (mostly from parts of Africa, but elsewhere as well) and who have academic challenges uniquely related to their history and who may be below grade level. The friend who founded the school had previously invited us to consider registering Seth to attend the school. However, it had never really been a consideration for us because we'd assumed that, unless we heard otherwise from God, we'd be homeschoolers to the end. That was always my plan/hope for the future. </div><div><br /></div><div>However, this February, when a single word kept appearing in my mind while praying for Seth, a new plan for his schooling began to emerge. Why? Because the name of the school that I'm talking about is <i>Freedom School</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>That was the beginning point of a three month process of considering Seth's best interests and praying for wisdom. In the end we decided that he would benefit from having additional educational input into his life. There were many considerations that led us to the decision point, and in the end we registered him to attend school this fall! Academics have been tough for Seth, largely due to circumstances completely beyond his control; and the teachers at Freedom School are uniquely and extremely well qualified to help him advance. It was a tough decision on my part; maybe less so for my hubby, who has watched me struggle this past academic year to best educate our boy. So we are hoping and praying that this unique opportunity will be just what he needs. He will enter grade 11 at Freedom School just one short month from now. <br /><div><br /></div><div>On a similar time line, we also began to take a close look at our 14-year-old Lizzie, who will start grade 9 (high school) this fall. Lizzie has made huge strides, academically, over the past 18-24 months. It was about two years ago that Lizzie decided that she wanted to be at 'grade level' - something that was never a priority for me because as homeschoolers, when/how the kids learn what they need to learn doesn't really matter. Plus, my younger kids spent their first few years as part of our family learning so much about the world that had nothing to do with academics and much more about adjusting to being in a new family/country and everything that this entailed. So when Lizzie decided that she wanted to work towards being at grade level, I didn't really have much to do with it - it was pretty much all her, working hard to be on academic par with her peers. And she's done it! Just one or two months ago, after a lot of hard and consistent work, she completed her grade 8 math, which was the last area she wanted to progress in.</div><div><br /></div><div>In hindsight, given the decision we have recently made about Lizzie, I wonder if it was God who put in her the desire to work towards grade level. Because had she not worked at this, our decision for her now wouldn't even have been a consideration. We began in February/March to take a look at what might be best for her and, after a similar prayerful process for her, we ultimately made the decision that she will also attend school in fall. This marks another huge, upcoming change for our family. Lizzie will be attending the high school that I attended in my teens; it's a wonderful Christian school that is fairly academically focused and does a really good job of preparing kids for university, which we can see Lizzie being interested in a few short years from now. There are about fifty kids in the current grade 8 class moving into grade 9, and thirty additional kids have also signed up to come into the school for grade 9; so Lizzie will join at a time when many other kids will be new to the school. This was a significant factor for us in making the decision to enrol her. We could have continued to school Lizzie at home over the coming year, but grade 9 is such a big transition year that we ultimately decided that she might find her way a little more easily in a year when many other kids were starting at the school. What thrilled me about her upcoming class is the diversity represented in the kids joining; we sat in on a zoom school orientation session not long ago, with many of the thirty other new kids also participating, and at least a third of the kids were kids of colour. That was an important factor for me in considering the school that Lizzie would attend, and something that I had enquired about before even sending in her application; and it would seem that this need has been met. We're very thankful.</div><div><br /></div><div>And finally, as he has done already this past academic year, my oldest will be attending grade 12 at a local school on a half-time basis. A year ago we made the decision to enrol Matt in a grade 11 class for a few subjects - notably Physics, Chemistry, and Pre-Cal. These courses were ones that I would have found difficult to teach, despite his aptitude for such courses, and so he attended school part-time in the 2020-2021 year to meet that need. This coming fall will see him taking four classes at the same school (Physics, Chem, Pre-Cal, and Law) three days per week. And on the other two days, he'll continue with other classes at home (Literature, Geography, Phys Ed, Guitar, Food & Nutrition). </div><div><br /></div><div>And so our lives are about to change significantly just a few short weeks from now. My role will become that of chauffeur, to/from three different high schools, as well as coach for much of Matt's at-home work two days/week. Suddenly I am a homeschooling parent of half of a kid, instead of three whole kids! That reality hasn't really sunk in for me, and I imagine that I will have some grieving to do this fall.</div><div><br /></div><div>Geoff and I have decided that I am not going to make a lot of plans for myself over the coming academic year, even though on three days/week I will have about five hours of time to myself. We're going to let the year unfold and see what we need to do to adjust to having three kids attending school. We don't know what this transition is going to look like, or how hard it's going to be on the two younger kids (Matt has already had the past year to adjust to being in school part-time). In addition, I've really been struggling with my own emotional health since January, and need to change something up this fall to care for myself a little differently than previously. I am burned out. Really and truly burned out. I don't know what I need to do in order to recover, but I know it means doing <i>something</i> different. And so I'm going to be pretty low-key for those 15 hours/week I'll be on my own. I'm going to grieve, I might go for coffee once or twice/week with friends, I'm going to tackle some of the dozens of projects at home that have needed attention for a very long time, I'm going to pray about what God might have up next for me, and I'm going to take on my emotional and physical well-being. </div><div><br /></div><div>A year from now, when Matt graduates, I won't be a h/schooling mom at all any more, so this year will be a wonderful time of transition for me. I confess that I'm glad that I get to keep half of a kid home with me for one more year, and I'm really looking forward to that. In some ways it seems like we're coming 'round full circle - it was just Matt and me who started out h/schooling together way back in the beginning, before Seth and Lizzie joined the family; and now it's just Matt and me who will finish h/schooling together. One precious last year.</div><div><br /></div><div>So.</div><div><br /></div><div>There are lots of changes coming our way. I'm both anxious and excited to see the year roll out, and I'm increasingly pumped to see the kids take on new challenges. Homeschooling has been the best (and the hardest) thing I've ever done, and I have zero regrets about the decision we made years ago to school at home. Now it's time to change course a little and see this part of my own journey wind down over the coming year. I believe deep down that this is the best decision for each of the kids, that we've been responsive to how God has led us each year (including this one), and that these decisions come at a time in my own journey where I will benefit from the change. Lord willing.</div><div><br /></div></div>Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-87896562863705491462021-02-28T20:00:00.002-06:002021-03-02T15:43:20.863-06:00A Weekend to Think<p>I have just completed a much needed weekend by myself. I've been feeling pretty burned out and tired, so I asked Geoff if he could take the kids to the cottage for a couple of nights so that I could have a little bit of quiet time to collect myself. Thankfully it worked out and I have had a great (quiet) weekend at home - just me and the dogs.</p><p>I didn't accomplish very much at a practical level! No organizational projects done despite the need, minimal cleaning, a few hours of Netflix, a fair bit of reading, several cups of coffee, naps in my library chair, late nights to bed. But maybe that was accomplishment enough because what I ended up being able to do the most was <i>think</i>. It didn't take more than about an hour on my own before I had my first insight, my first non-urgent thought about life. And the thoughts kept tumbling out of my head all weekend like that. </p><p>Mostly my thoughts were about the kids. All three are going through lots of teenage angst and issues, and they all need regular insight, discernment, and prayer on my part to be able to understand what's truly going on with each of them. All three are so different from each other - is it possible to have three opposites? They have fundamentally different personalities, gifts, challenges, interests, abilities, ways of thinking and processing, ways of being motivated, general outlooks on life, and so on. </p><p>I have found over the course of years that because they are so different from each other, parenting my three cannot employ a cookie-cutter approach. What works for one child has no bearing on another. Ways of encouraging, disciplining, monitoring, spending time with, praying for, and loving each of them for the unique people that they are is critical for me - even though sometimes the kids would prefer that I use a one-size-fits-them-all approach (when it suits their wants). I never promise my kids equal treatment, as treating them exactly the same would have very different results, depending on the child. </p><p>As other parents undoubtedly also experience, I find this whole parenting thing exhausting. The mere premise of parenting is the most challenging thing I've ever undertaken. In addition, as homeschoolers, the kids and I have spent the majority of our last decade+ together - whether schooling at home or out and about with our family and friends. Homeschooling is fantastic and I wouldn't change it for the world, but it is overwhelming and exhausting at times. Complicating everything, this past year's covid crisis meant that all of our usual outside-the-home activities were cancelled or switched to an unsatisfactory online format; accordingly, like many others, the kids and I have basically spent every waking moment together since the pandemic began. This <strike>never-ending</strike> time together has been in equal measures wonderfully enriching and relentless. Hence the beauty and benefit of this weekend by myself, so that I could just <i>think</i> about each of my kids and their unique issues and how best to support them.</p><p>It was amazing to observe that it took mere hours on my own to be able to discern, as I let my thoughts wander and settle on each of the kids, what the 'big picture' is on their lives at this stage of their development and maturation. Once I had an understanding of this 'big picture', I was able to identify their current strengths and challenge areas, and began to work out a plan for how to help them with the character challenges they face at the moment. The reason I think this was amazing to observe about myself is that I so seldom have even an hour or two where I am completely alone, and yet mere hours alone and quiet is all it took to begin to reset and reassess what needs doing. </p><p>As I thought and processed this weekend, I kept a file open on the computer where I made note about my thoughts about each child, and I added to it as the weekend progressed. I jotted down random thoughts I had about each of them, honed in on the big picture of where they're at this moment, listed their current challenge areas as they came to mind, any noted any strategies that came to mind as I thought about how to help each of them with their current issues. This was such a helpful process and both practical and future oriented. Processing this way gives me something to sink my teeth and determination into in the days ahead when I will undoubtedly find myself more engaged in the tyranny of the urgent than in employing a thoughtful and intentional approach with my beloveds. I am now armed for those coming days with the deliberation and intention I will need. </p><p><br /></p>Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-57047685749865183822021-02-16T23:37:00.001-06:002021-02-16T23:37:49.107-06:00Old Wounds<p>A couple of years have come and gone since I've posted on any kind of regular basis, and oh how I have missed it. I stopped essentially because the kids were no longer particularly comfortable with me sharing aspects of their lives publicly. I could understand that, particularly as they were getting older and starting to experience having more of a journey of their own. But I resisted their wishes for a little while because <i>my</i> life journey is inextricably linked with their journeys, and I felt like I had a right to publish bits of my own story. But in the end, their opinions prevailed and I essentially gave up. I didn't know how to find a balance between publishing about them, and publishing about other aspects of my life, so I basically gave up on writing altogether. I found it all rather heart-breaking at the time, to be honest. I had printed all of the years of my blogs in hard cover book formats, and then tucked them away behind glass at the top of a book shelf so that no one could read them. </p><p>Now, looking back, I can readily say that I really regret my decision to stop writing. I really, really, really regret not finding my way through that confusion towards a path of my own. I love writing. It's always been cathartic to me, and it's where I find bits of myself that I don't see anywhere else. Whether it's here or somewhere else, I need to find my way back to writing. I don't know what that looks like.</p><p>A little ironically, in just the last couple of weeks, as we were re-organizing the bookshelves in our library after having some house renos done, one of the kids found the printed books of my blog from years past. She started to read through the book with great interest and was totally engrossed by the memories that were coming back to her. I was amazed at how much her captured interest instantly opened a wound I had thought long closed already. I actually asked her to put the book away and was surprised that my voice quivered just a little in the asking. What I didn't tell her was that it hurt my heart to see her reading the words I had painstakingly spent so many late night hours writing, as a memory for her and her brothers. Clearly I have a little inner work to do yet, to overcome some residual pain.</p><p>I don't know if I still have it - the ability, creativity, desire to write as I once did. But what that re-opened wound taught me is that I need to try.</p><p><br /></p>Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-6396640310155122632019-05-05T23:10:00.000-05:002019-05-12T23:12:41.025-05:00Summer SchoolOne of the things I love about homeschooling is that we can take breaks whenever we need or want to. Last year at this time, the kids were on a six-week road trip west, and it was wonderful...life learning in a totally non-academic way!<br />
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In addition to taking breaks whenever we want to, we also have opportunity to school when the public system takes a break. This summer, for example, the plan is for the kids and me to do more schooling than we have traditionally undertaken during the summer months.<br />
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It's been a busy school year and a fairly productive one on most fronts. We are winding down on much of what we've been working on this winter. The kids have all progressed well in their various areas, and it's been good to see them being able to take on a little more academic work. But I'm also feeling a little 'behind' where I'd like to be with them, in a few different areas, and so we're going to focus on those things this summer.<br />
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First, I'm going to be starting history with them all, beginning with the History of the 20th century - my hope is that by studying something a little more recent than, say, the Victorian Era, history might grab their interest. A friend very kindly sent me a copy of the outline that she used when teaching her kids about the 20th century and that has been incredibly helpful for this non-historian to wrap her head around. My friend's list included the major events of that century, both for Canada and the World, and provided a listing of various resources (print, film, etc) that can be used in the process of studying it. I need to do a little research into each of the events, but having these things laid out for me has been amazing as I've begun to prepare to work with the kids on it. I find myself somewhat excited about this pursuit.<br />
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Second, we're going to be doing a little science. Matthew took a science class this winter, with a small group of homeschoolers, but some of it appeared to be somewhat over his head (which I expected), and so I thought we'd back things up a little during the summer and see if we could provide a little more structure to underpin what he was studying this year. I'll work with the younger two kids on a different program.<br />
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Math is a third area that I feel somewhat edgy about; we haven't done enough of it this year. So we'll tackle that on a much more regular basis in summer, too. This is the area that I still need to figure out a little more clearly.<br />
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Finally, we'll continue to work on a few things that we already did throughout this winter: Spelling; cursive writing; and maybe multiplication tables.<br />
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I certainly hope that we have a fun and relaxed summer. But there's really no reason that we shouldn't also be tackling a few subjects that would be good to move forward. I'm looking forward to it!<br />
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<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-75000202333902602152019-02-01T19:40:00.001-06:002022-06-04T23:23:53.286-05:00The Ups and Downs of LifeThere have been a lot of ups and downs over the past week or two. It's hard to keep up with the roller coaster of emotions that go along with those ups and downs.<br />
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* Seth read his first real book ever...one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books. His reading is finally, <i>blessedly</i> coming along for real! I've often thought of the process of learning how to read something like climbing a mountain - it's really, really exhausting, uphill work and <i>sooo</i> hard; then finally, just when it seems like it's never going to happen, all of the sudden you're at the summit looking down an easier path. Seth has crested the summit; I believe that the hardest is behind him. It has been years of effort and hard work, and it is paying off. He is working five days/week with me, and twice a week with a tutor, and I am so proud of his hard work. Recognizing his progress and seeing it confirmed has definitely been one of the 'up' points of the last week or two.<br />
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* All three of my children are in raging puberty, and the number of volatile emotions flying around here is enough to make me, quite literally, insane. Add to this the turbulence of their pre-menopausal mother and we're really a hotbed of emotional <i>mess</i>! I'm not quite sure if I'm going to survive the teen years...and I have a lot of years to go yet. This would not be an 'up' part of the last week or two.<br />
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* Sunday morning was a historical moment for we five - it's the first time <i>ever</i> that we all went to the gym together! The kids and I have been trying to go somewhat regularly (three times/week is our goal), and finished a one month membership last week; and over the past week Geoff got to the gym a few times, too. So a few days ago, we all signed up for a three month membership! We likely won't get there all together very often, but today was a watershed for us. Definitely a positive aspect of the last couple of weeks.<br />
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* My mom's health is always fragile over the past couple of years - she was in the ER last week, and has had numerous medical appointments since then, trying to figure out what's going on with her various issues. That is never a good point of <i>any</i> week.<br />
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* Matthew continues to cope relatively well with his various academic pursuits. The load for his English Lit/Writing class is significant, in particular. This week he started Jane Austen's <u>Sense and Sensibility</u>, which I am reading aloud to him (I loved this book back during my English Lit days at university, and it's already proving delightful for me to re-engage after a long absence). Matthew's writing is improving monthly (as are his keyboarding skills, slowly but surely), and he is learning lots of different writing techniques (essay writing, persuasive writing, newspaper reporting writing, descriptive writing, etc etc). This is seeming to be on a good trajectory.<br />
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* As I mentioned in my earlier blog post, it seems that any one of the kids is almost always mad at me. When I make parenting decisions, I do not automatically make the same decisions for all three kids - I've never been someone who makes the same rules/parameters for all of the kids. Instead, my inclination is to consider the needs of each child individually, and to make allowances or restrictions or parenting decisions based on each child's need. As a result, however, one child or another almost invariably feels treated unfairly, because their only basis of comparison is how their siblings are treated, and because they're not mature enough yet to understand how I parent or to see that in the bigger picture, their needs (and often their wants) are met. It just gets tiring sometime, to be the object of someone's wrath or another one's death glare. It's emotionally tiring and takes a lot of resilience on my part. In my most tired moments, I have often toyed with the idea of treating the kids essentially the same (this is how our culture usually works, it seems), but there's just something in me that rails against this approach; my children are very different from each other and have different challenges, different strengths, and different needs. At any rate, I've been finding myself quite discouraged on this front of late...definitely not a recent highlight.<br />
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At any rate, I'm hanging in there. Surprises like my experience last week at Pine Ridge are so precious...I'm still so moved when I think about what that young woman did for me, what God saw fit to do about the need I had. I'm a big believer that we can't fully experience joy or satisfaction if we don't also experience the opposite of those feelings sometimes. So I'm ok knowing that life continues to move, change, surprise, and test us. I've got a God beside me that cares a lot about where my heart is at, and I am thankful for this.<br />
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<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-76183828649728079492019-01-23T16:13:00.004-06:002019-04-15T19:30:00.335-05:00A Little Mark of EncouragementI was feeling pretty discouraged last week. Throughout the whole week, I felt like anything that could go wrong <i>did</i> go wrong, mostly because of something I'd said or done. I said to Geoff one day that I'm used to one of the kids being mad at me at any given point, but that on a few days last week it felt like all three were mad at me most of the time, in addition to <i>him </i>being upset with me for a few things. I felt like I was messing everything up, at home and elsewhere. In addition, a few life circumstances are occasionally so challenging that it's just plan hard juggling and managing everything. I'm a pretty healthy person, emotionally, usually; and I'm generally fairly strong and resilient. However, last week challenged most of my better qualities.<br />
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On Sunday morning at church, while our pastor was speaking, I was just plain discouraged. I had a head ache that I'm sure was brought on by all of the anxiety and discouragement, and I didn't know how to regain my equilibrium. So I prayed about it quietly, sitting there in church. I told God about all of it, and then said that I don't ask Him for a whole lot just for myself, but that I really wanted to ask Him for a little encouragement. I said that I didn't even know what that would look like, and I told Him that it was ok if the encouragement didn't come and that I'd be all right; but I also said that I felt like I really <i>needed</i> it from Him. I didn't feel any differently after I'd finished praying; in fact, I beetled out to the van soon after, my head pounding.<br />
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Later that afternoon, having had no time to myself for weeks already, I said to Geoff that I really needed to get out of the house for 2-3 hours on my own, if he felt like he could manage the kids. He said he was ok, and so I decided to drive out of town a ways to one of my favourite places.<br />
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Pine Ridge is this peaceful, country place just thirty-five minutes away from home, and it has a great shop and restaurant located on the most beautiful grounds, inside a picturesque provincial park area. In summer and fall, I love to go there and walk around the expansive gardens. It's where I wanted to go with my family for my 50th birthday celebration a couple of years ago and it's where I usually go once or twice a year for a delicious meal and a wander. This was where I'd been wanting all day to be.<br />
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I went up into the restaurant and my server asked me how I was doing. I said that I wasn't having the best of weekends, but that I was glad to be there because I find it so peaceful there. She said that she hoped she could make my day a little better, and offered to bring me a cup of chai with almond milk. I said that would be perfect.<br />
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Later, I ended up ordering supper, and while I ate, I wrote down a bunch of things that I'd been thinking about and processing. I felt a little calmer and more organized in my head. Eventually, my server came back and said that it looked like I needed some dessert. I agreed, and asked her to surprise me. She brought me some lemony thing that had dairy in it, but I didn't really care...it was her favourite dessert.<br />
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Some time later, I called the server over and said that I was ready for the bill. I was feeling a bit more relaxed and a little better. The woman who'd been serving me said that my bill had already been taken care of. I was puzzled and said that I didn't understand. She repeated that there was no bill today, and that it had been taken care of. It briefly crossed my mind that Geoff had phoned in with his credit card number, but that immediately didn't make sense because we share the same credit card account, so what would the difference be if he called it in? I shook my head at the young woman I was talking to and said "What?! I don't understand." Then she told me, almost reluctantly, that <i>she</i> had taken care of my bill already. "What?!" I said again, stunned and totally not understanding. I started to tear up and said that I didn't understand - why would she do that for a stranger?<br />
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She said that she had seen me when I'd walked into the restaurant earlier and that I'd just looked so discouraged; then she heard me say that I wasn't having a good weekend. And she had wanted to make my day a little better, and to encourage me. I started to cry, she started to cry, and then she came over and hugged me. I'm sure we looked like idiots to everyone around us, but whatever. I told her that she was a true blessing to me on a day when I really needed it, because that was exactly what I was in need of...encouragement. I was so moved, and I hugged her again when I left a few minutes later, still teared up.<br />
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I cried most of the way home, so moved. Even some of the words my young server had used were some of the precise words/phrases I'd used that morning when praying. I felt/feel very thankful that God chose to answer that very specific prayer in a totally unique and unexpected way. It wasn't about the money...it was about feeling heard by the One who made me about a small need that He counted important enough to respond to in a very personal way. In the Bible's New Testament book of Matthew, believers are encouraged to not worry about their lives, because as God takes care even of the birds of the air, how much more valuable are <i>we</i> to Him? On Sunday, I had a personal experience of God caring not only for the sparrows; He took care of me.<br />
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</style>Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-34990517516831728522019-01-05T22:59:00.004-06:002019-01-05T22:59:40.813-06:00The Fam.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It's been a long time since I've posted any pictures of the five of us, so I thought I'd put up these recent ones...both taken in the past two weeks. Neither are great pictures of me, but whatever...</div>
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Aren't the kids growing up?!!</div>
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Blessings,</div>
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Ruth.</div>
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<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-41122712947844342872019-01-02T09:57:00.004-06:002019-01-23T16:15:08.688-06:00What Teenage Boys Like...Not.I just offered to Matthew that I could make a delicious Roasted Broccoli Quinoa Salad to take to his potluck gathering later today at a friend's place.<br />
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His response (with both laughter and horror in his voice): "Mom! This is a group of teenage guys. We don't want to eat <i>quinoa</i>!"<br />
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This from the boy who actually loves this dish. Sigh.Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-44201016879960803282018-12-31T21:44:00.000-06:002019-01-23T16:46:50.923-06:00Farewell to 2018Another year has come to an end. It's been a good year - busy, eventful, slow, fast, fun, hard. Good Bye 2018!<br />
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We are bringing the year to a quiet close this year. Last year we spent it with dear friends, and part of me would like to repeat that experience. But I have a sick kid at home and I'm tired at this year end - I've had a number of terrible sleeps lately, and I am craving routine and sleep. So we'll keep this year end quiet.<br />
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For several years, I've tried to complete a series of questions to mark the year's end - it's a way of tracking events of the year just completed. Here are my answers to the questions for 2018.<br />
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I wish you a happy and blessed New Year...each and every one.<br />
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<b>1. What did you do in 2018 that you'd never done before?</b><br />
I took the kids on a 6-week road trip. Just me and the kids (though Geoff flew out and joined us for a week in the middle of the trip). I drove through the Rocky Mountains (crossed that off of my bucket list!) and drove 8,765 km over the course of those six weeks. It was an awesome adventure!<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions and will you make more for next year?</b></span><br />
I didn't really make any last year.<br />
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This year, rather than some strict resolutions, I have a few ideas about things I'd like to do differently, but I'm not making them absolutes because I'll undoubtedly fail if I make them so iron clad!<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>3. Did anyone close to you die?</b></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">No. Thankfully. It was hard enough losing my beautiful sister-in-law towards the end of last year.</span><br />
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<b>4. Did you travel? Did you visit other countries? Where did you go?</b><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Well, as a follow-up to #1, yes yes yes...I did travel this year...throughout western Canada. Our furthest point was the west coast of Vancouver Island, where we spent a week; our longest stops otherwise were Vancouver, Hornby Island, Calgary, and Edmonton. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Other than that six-week adventure, the kids and I spent about four months at the cottage during the summer.</span><br />
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It was an awesome year for travel and adventure!<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>5. What would you like to have in the coming year that you lacked in the year past?</b></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Time. I wish time would just slow down a little - the kids are getting so big and the weeks pass by so quickly. Even though we are homeschoolers and spend 24/7 with our kids, I still want more time of it. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>6. What date(s) from 2018 will remain etched upon your memory and why?</b></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">May 22 - the day the kids and I arrived home from our road trip. I'd done it - accomplished this massive undertaking! I felt proud of myself, sad to be finished the trip, relieved to be home, ready to go again.</span><br />
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May 24 - the day I began to eat plant-based.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>7. What was your biggest achievement of the year and why? <i>or</i> What things are you proud of?</b></span><br />
Definitely the road trip...which seems to be the theme of the year, according to how I am answering these questions so far. But it really was a huge undertaking and a huge achievement. I researched the trip, prepared for it, packed for it, drove all 8,765 km of it, educated my children throughout, was brave during moments when I was scared, took some chances which turned out to be highlights, and so on. I was able to cross a few things off of my life's bucket list, and I was/am proud of myself for just going ahead and doing it and creating memories for/with all of us.<br />
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The other thing that's been a huge accomplishment for me was turning upside down the way we eat in our family. We eat a 98%+ plant-based diet now, and it was a monumental effort on my part to make this change, figure out how to do it, and implement it. We've been at this since June, so over half of my year has been dedicated to making this massive change. I'm proud of myself for undertaking this.<br />
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<b>8. What was your biggest failure of the year and why?</b><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sigh. My biggest failure of the year is the same as last year's biggest failure: I have barely touched any of my year's intended organizational tasks. Granted, between our road trip and our months at the cottage, I was actually away from home for 5.5 months of the year (wow!) but I haven't really done any of my big projects since settling back into routine in fall. And the house needed it last year already!! Can you guess what kind of new year's resolutions I might be making??</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>9. Did you suffer illness or injury?</b></span><br />
Thankfully, no. We have all been injury free this year. I haven't even been sick since starting the plant-based eating plan. I'm sure it's just a matter of time, but this has been a great year for lack of illness or injury in our household.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>10. What was the best/biggest/most novel thing you bought?</b></span><br />
Huh. Well, certainly the biggest single chunk of money that we spent was on the spring road trip...nothing cheap about that.<br />
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It's also expensive to do the upkeep on the cottage - in addition to mortgage payments, there are always things in need of repair or replacing (just like in a city home); and it's not inexpensive having guests at the cottage (food, gas for the boat, bedding, etc).<br />
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Other than that, I think that the ice fishing equipment that we've picked up over the past year has comprised the most significant purchases we've made: A large ice-fishing tent; and a gas powered ice auger.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>11. Whose behaviour merited celebration/recognition?</b></span><br />
There are a few people I call out on this front - all of whom have navigated difficult circumstances this year and who have done so with grace and steadfastness.<br />
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I have a friend, D, who is married to my friend, P. P is a pastor, and he lost his job in 2017, under difficult circumstances. I have watched how they have handled what happened to him, and have been so moved and inspired by the grace and forgiveness and <i>strength</i> which has marked their journey. I have watched how they continued to parent their children very wisely in the midst of challenging circumstances, and have seen them always looking heavenward for assurance and care. They have modelled faith and grace for their children, and for those of us watching from the outside. I admire them for this, and respect them greatly. When I think of who merits recognition this year, I think of D and P, and how they have navigated this part of their life's journey. P has recently found another pastoral job, and I couldn't be happier for both of my friends, and their children.<br />
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Another person I take my hat off to this year is my oldest friend, J. She lost her mother to cancer this fall and, in anticipation of this, J took an unpaid, six week leave from work to be with her parents and to help her Mom die. She was the rock in her family during that so-difficult time. I cannot express how much I respect and admire how well she handled herself, how much I have learned from her authenticity and her grieving process. The wisdom and care and intentionality (is that a word?) that she displayed during and since that difficult time has been nothing short of remarkable. I have loved and admired her for many years; and only feel those things more deeply having watched her be her best self when rubber hit the road.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>12. Whose behaviour made you appalled and/or depressed?</b></span><br />
Well, this has been the year of the me-too movement, where numerous women have come forward to protest against men (many of them celebrities or in positions of power) who have engaged in sexual harassment or sexual assault. It all seemed to begin with the accusations against Harvey Weinstein, and it snowballed from there. The behaviour of these men, and the men I have known who have caused me to say 'me too' in my heart of hearts, has truly appalled me and sometimes caused me great despair...that we have moved/changed so little after so many generations.<br />
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<b>13. Where did most of your money go?</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Easy question. Road trip. Cottage. Feeding my endlessly hungry children.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>14. What did you get really, really excited about?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Well, at risk of being really repetitive, it was the road trip this year that I looked forward to with huge anticipation...and a little terror. I kinda got excited just about being so brave, too!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>15. What song(s) did you enjoy this year?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The worship music of Colton Dixon, whom Matthew and I got to see perform live at an outdoor concert in southern Manitoba in August - which marked Dixon's first time performing in Canada. I love his music and often feel both moved and inspired by it.</span><br />
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Some of the other artists on my playlists these days include: Lauren Daigle; Toni Braxton; TobyMac; George Ezra; NF; Hillsong; Imagine Dragons; Sia; Twenty One Pilots; Pink; a little Bruno Mars; Cold Play; and a bunch of others.<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Matt and I, along with two friends, went to an NF concert in March of this year, and I loved it. I am a big fan of NF's lyrics and style, and we listened to a lot of NF while cruising down the highway on our road trip in spring (oh my goodness, major road trip flashback to the afternoon the kids and I were barrelling along the seaside highway north of Nanaimo towards the ferry terminal that we would take to Hornby Island - it was pouring rain outside and we were singing at the top of our lungs to NF's depressing Therapy Session, trying to drown out the thundering sounds of the rain pelting against our windshield)! </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I love, love, love music, and I find inspiration in much of it. Just a few weeks ago, Seth found for me the tiny adaptor that enables me to plug my old ear buds into my iPhone so that I can listen to music on Spotify or iTunes. That first evening after he'd found my adaptor, I sat in our library for about 2-3 hours, just listening to the music that I love, and actually being moved to tears with the sheer joy of that beauty. (I think the kids thought I was a little cuckoo!) And now at Christmas, Geoff bought me wireless, noise-cancelling headphones which provide an even <i>better</i> quality of listening; I am in heaven when I can sneak off to my favourite chair in the library, close my eyes, and fully engage in the music of all sorts that I love. Little else moves me as deeply.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>16. Compared to this time last year, are you:</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>i. happier or sadder? </b> Happier. Last year was such a sad year all 'round, with the illness and death of my SIL. I still feel all of those feelings, but also other things. I have found this year that I am growing in my ability to simply be myself....bringing closer together the person I am to the outside world and the person I am on the inside. There's something about getting a bit older that makes one just a little freer, somehow, to just be oneself with a greater degree of confidence. And I like that feeling...and am getting better at it. I hold things a little more loosely than I have before, feel less judgmental in general, and am more prepared to do what it takes to make things right where needed.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>ii. thinner or fatter? </b> A little thinner, thanks to giving up meat products. I thought I'd lose more weight as a result, to be honest. But I'm grateful for even the few pounds that I shed this year. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>iii. richer or poorer?</b> Poorer. Geoff has a good job and a good income, for which I am very thankful. But even then, sometimes, it feels hard to make ends meet. Of course, we have made choices that have sapped our finances (cottage, the road trip, riding lessons for the kids) and I understand that we have made decisions that contribute to the 'poorer' feeling. We are so <i>not</i> poor; it's just interesting to me that we can sometimes (ashamedly) <i>feel</i> that way despite Geoff having a good job.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>17. What do you wish you'd done more of?</b></span><br />
I simply can't think of anything here...and I don't want to procrastinate the finishing of this questionnaire so I think I'll leave this one. :)<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>18. What do you wish you'd done less of?</b></span><br />
I wish I'd watched less Netflix at night...it's such a sleep and energy sucker. I don't watch every night, but a couple of times/week after the kids go to bed, when it's time for me to hit the hay. When I do watch, I stay up too late and am tired the next day as a result. I regret those hours.<br />
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<b>19. How did you spend Christmas Day?</b><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We five spent the morning together, opening gifts and eating breakfast (monkey bread and fruit). In the afternoon, we headed to my parents' home, along with my sister's family and a couple of family friends. There we ate dinner together, opened a few more gifts, and visited. It was a lovely day. Of note, while the rest of the extended family ate a turkey dinner ordered in from a local hotel, Geoff and I enjoyed an entirely vegan meal that I prepared...and it was delicious!! I was proud of myself for getting through our first vegan Christmas intact, and satisfied with wonderful things to eat.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>20. What was your favourite tv program(s) in 2018?</b></span><br />
- Kim's Convenience<br />
- Anne (of Green Gables)...season 1<br />
- Schitt's Creek...seasons 1 & 2<br />
- Better Call Saul<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>21. What's the best book you read this year?</b></span><br />
Maybe <u>The Book Thief</u>, by Markus Zusak? A number of vegan cookbooks that I have come to love? I can't actually think of a specific one!<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>22. What did you want and get?</b></span><br />
Headphones - wireless, noise cancelling. I didn't even know I wanted these until Christmas Day when I received them. Now I think it was the thing I wanted the most. How good of Geoff to know what I really wanted, even before I did. :)<br />
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<b>23. What did you want and not get?</b><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- I have enough of everything. More than enough. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>24. What was your favourite film?</b></span><br />
I can't even remember if I saw a single film in theatres this year - which is too bad, because I do love the big screen. I'm sure I saw a couple, but nothing stands out to me.<br />
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Certainly watching the Netflix documentary <i>Forks Over Knives</i>, had a huge impact on me...it was a main source of information for Geoff and me when we made the decision to move towards a plant-based diet. So it was undoubtedly one of the most impactful things I watched this year.<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>25. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I turned 52 this year. The kids and I were in the city on my birthday (I can't remember why we came home from the cottage); Geoff was out of town on business and so the kids and I were on our own together. The next day, when he was home again, we went out for dinner with my dad and mom...and we celebrated my mom's birthday that day, too.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>26. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably satisfying?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Likely just a little more weight loss.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year?</b></span><br />
I discovered leggings this year (I know I'm about a decade behind)...full length and capri. I've always thought that these aren't the best fashion choice for larger women, but I actually think they look good on me...with a longer shirt or sweater overtop. That's my fashion statement this year. I'm wearing some right now as I write this!<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>28. What kept you sane?</b></span><br />
In no particular order: Friends; God; Geoff; being comfortable in my own skin; occasionally having a couple of hours to myself; my dogs (both of whom are with me as I write this).<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>29. Which celebrity/public figure did you admire/fancy the most?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hmmm....not sure that I <i>admire</i> or <i>fancy</i> her, precisely, but I certainly watched more of Meghan Markle than I've ever watched in the past. I have a secret fondness for all things royal, and I loved watching the latest royal wedding in spring. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>30. Who was the best new person you met? Who did you meet for the first time?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Well, I'd been wanting to meet Cindy for quite a long time! She and I became online/email friends through the world of adoption and I've wanted to meet her for quite a while. She lives in the Greater Vancouver area, and I've visited that area numerous times since we've been chatting. But generally when I fly in to Vancouver, it's for a relatively short period of time and my hours are consumed by other things (my brother and nephews, mostly). But when the kids and I went on our road trip and spent 10-11 days in Vancouver with my brother, I suddenly had the ability to branch out just a little. And so Cindy and I met for a few lovely hours over coffee (well, actually, appies) one evening and had a chance to put faces to names...and talk at a heart-to-heart level that's hard to come by when a relationship is via online/email. That was lovely!</span><br />
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Sharon is someone I met this fall through our church, and she has become a voice of candour and wisdom as it concerns one of our kids; I'm grateful to have met her and to have her in our lives moving forward.<br />
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Theresa is a homeschooling mom I've been wanting to get to know for some time. I first heard about her a few years ago when a mutual friend tried to connect us via email. Other mutual friends have talked about her many times since. She lives just minutes from me, and yet it's only been this year that I've had the privilege of meeting her and getting to know her. She is teaching the English Lit class that my oldest is taking along with a few other homeschooled high schoolers, and she's had a significant impact on both him and me this fall. She is someone of tremendous discipline and organization and faith, and I think I will be learning as much from her as my Matthew is!<br />
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There have surely been other wonderful people I have met this year for the first time; but these are the three that first jump to mind.<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>31. Who did you miss?</b></span><br />
Cathy. Definitely Cathy. My SIL. It's been 15 months since we lost her and I miss her laugh. Her smile. The way she looked at life. The way she had with people...with me.<br />
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<b>32. Any other highlights / lowlights of the year not already discussed?</b><br />
Road trip. Cottage. Planning a surprise 13th birthday party for Seth. <br />
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<b>33. What valuable lesson(s) did you learn in 2018?</b><br />
It's not a <i>new</i> lesson, to be sure, but it's become important to me that I am/become who God created me to be; that my husband and children become who God created them to be. We can't be anyone other than who we are, so I want us to become who we are meant to be, in Christ. We don't know how much time we have on earth, so I want to make the most of it.<br />
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Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-19211113463181097942018-12-30T22:52:00.000-06:002019-01-01T21:21:42.907-06:00Down and Fur Jackets? Are we Not Able to Stay Warm without Them?When Geoff and I became plant-based eaters, it wasn't for animal rights reasons...it was because we thought it was a healthier way to eat. I had never previously thought about never again eating meat; I'd never previously thought about eating a plant-based diet. But here we are. Over the past six months, as we've gradually become accustomed to eating differently, I've also become a little more aware of other valid reasons for not eating meat...mainly, the killing of animals and the environmental impact caused by methane-gas-producing animals.<br />
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I want to be clear that I am in no way close to living a consistently plant-based existence. There are many inconsistencies in my life, a few of which I will outline here:<br />
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* I still have leather goods at home (purses, shoes), which I think would be wasteful to throw out before they are fully used up. Also, I occasionally wear an older synthetic jacket and have wondered, from time to time, if it has down in it - and, even if it does have down in it, does that knowledge mean that I should discard the jacket, or continue wearing it until I am ready to purchase something else?<br />
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* My grandfather was a big game hunter when I was a child, and we have some of his exotic trophies in our home and cottage (zebra and bison rugs, deer antler and boar tusks, a hippo foot).<br />
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* One of my sons, who is neither vegan nor plant-based, is a fisher and wanna-be hunter, and we want to support as much as we can (and as much as we can stomach) this deeply held passion of his, even while wishing desperately that he find a different pursuit. I don't control his choices and passions, but I can educate him as well as I am able so that his choices are at least informed. This approach is troublesome to me, but it's where I'm at.<br />
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* My dogs eat raw meat/bone/organs, along with their fruits and veggies. It's difficult to get dogs onto a vegan diet, although it is something I intend to look into in the new year.<br />
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* I occasionally eat dairy cheese, as I am finding it difficult to give it up entirely, though I hope to make a complete break eventually.<br />
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So I am admittedly and somewhat-ashamedly hypocritical, all while trying to make small, every day changes to continue to move in a direction all the more consistent with the plant-based life I aspire to. I am sharing this with you because it is part of the journey that I am on, and I'm trying to figure it all out.<br />
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Recently, my own reaction to something took me completely by surprise, and made me realize that I really am processing these issues differently than I ever have before. I was on Instagram, scrolling through pictures, and came across a picture posted by an acquaintance. It was a picture of a jacket she'd just purchased - a very expensive, Canadian made jacket, filled with duck down and trimmed with real fox fur. Whereas I likely wouldn't have thought twice about this six months ago, I had such a strong, visceral reaction to that picture that I almost vomited. Truly. I'm not exaggerating. I totally shocked myself. What was coursing through my mind were questions, over and over, on repeat: How many farmed foxes had to die in order to trim that one jacket and create those beautiful pom poms (very horrible deaths, btw, after being ill-treated during their lives...the company has been called out on these issues before, I have learned)? How many ducks had to live in terrible conditions and ill health, only to die so that a person can have a jacket stuffed full of the softest, fluffiest down (something that the company's website talks about)?<br />
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The answers to these questions make me feel ill. Genuinely, physically ill. There is something terribly wrong with this picture. I could barely continue with my bit of research into how the animals used by this very company live and die - I just felt sicker and sicker and began to cry. This goes well beyond eating meat; it is purely for vanity's sake that those animals die - and yes, I get that animal fur is super warm (my mother had a fur coat when I was younger...I heard all about the warmth)...but there are alternatives.<br />
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These thoughts, this turbulence, is so new to me. I don't know what to do about it. Am I to become an animal activist? I don't really <i>want</i> to...there are already so many things that I am an advocate for. Do I <i>say</i> something to this acquaintance, clearly so pleased with her purchase of this jacket? It's not my right to try to impose my will on someone else....and if it <i>were</i> my right, what do I do about my own son's interest in hunting and fishing? I'm up at night thinking about these questions.<br />
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I don't know the answers to any of these questions and I find myself frustrated...with myself and with a society that I think has some odd values. Of all of the issues I've grappled with in my life, these are very new and surprising to me.<br />
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<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-70038500483109320472018-12-28T20:24:00.000-06:002019-01-10T21:44:46.002-06:00The Gamble That is Homeschooling...and a Narrative Piece by MatthewHomeschooling has, at times, felt like a bit of a gamble. I suppose that any of the education that we choose for our children carries inherent risk with it...but maybe homeschooling is a little scarier than mainstream, just because it is a little less common??<br />
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I'm not sure.<br />
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But at any rate, because I was educated in the public and private school systems, following curriculum is what I have always been most comfortable with. So homeschooling seemed like a pretty 'out there' kind of decision years ago when we first made that call.<br />
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I have a 14 year old boy who has been homeschooled from the start...he and I are in our 10th year of homeschooling together. For most of those years, I have lived on a spectrum of discomfort, ranging from mildly uncomfortable to extremely uncomfortable, depending on the year. When Matthew, at ages four, five, and six, showed an extreme aversion to anything having to do with reading (and most academics, for that matter), I had to move well beyond my comfort zone towards using no curriculum, because what I wanted mostly was for him to not hate learning and to not hate reading. We did life learning, unschooling...all sorts of things to get around using curriculum. For years. I asked the advice of many homeschoolers whom I respected and they all said the same thing: stop being so focused on schooling, and just play with your child and read to him...he'll read when he's ready to read. So that's most of what Matthew and I did together when he was young. He was an only child for much of that time, and so we just hung out together...we played, I read books, we did chores and errands together...basically lived life together.<br />
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His (and my) world was shaken shortly after he turned seven, when we brought new siblings into his life via adoption. He went from being an only child for 7.25 years to having two siblings who were turning six and four, and whose personalities and tendencies were already fully established. It was an immense change and so our move into unschooling (where we used no curriculum whatsoever, and simply tried to live life and cultivate interests as much as possible) was both convenient and necessary.<br />
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We unschooled for three-and-a-half years...likely closer to four years. During that time, we adjusted to living life as a new family of five; we read books, learned to play together, and did other sorts of casual learning. Although Matthew's adjustment to have siblings was very difficult, the transition to unschooling was an easy one. It just made sense for him that he shouldn't be bound by work books and by a way of learning things that was a cookie-cutter approach for <i>all</i> kids rather than for this specific one. At some point in those years, we found a lovely woman who ended up tutoring Matthew in math-related subjects, but even this closely resembled our unschooling methods, because she used games and play to follow his interests in math subjects; he seemed to learn math at a fairly deep level, although it was unconventional and certainly did not follow curriculum.<br />
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During those years, I would pull out a how-to-read curriculum every few months, wondering if the time had come when he was ready to learn how to read. "NO!" he would scream at times. Or he would take one look at the book and shake his head and simply refuse to sit down at the table. I was so determined that he not hate reading that I never forced the issue. On the inside, however, I was a wreck of anxiety, wondering if my child would ever learn to read, and wondering what his future would look like in a non-reading world. Would he ever get a job? Would he be able to go to university if that's what he chose to do? Had I failed him as a parent? Had we made the wrong choice by homeschooling?<br />
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Finally, just as Matt was soon to turn ten years old, he began to read. In fact, it felt like something of a miracle when he went from non-reading status to grade five-ish reading level in <i>four</i> <i>days</i>. He was simply ready to learn at that moment, and so it took almost no time whatsoever. Whew...the sense of relief was profound.<br />
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In the four years since, Matthew's reading skills have gradually improved. He next began to pick up writing skills when he was thirteen years old...arguably late in the game when compared to kids who are publicly schooled, but consistent with his learn-when-he's-ready-to-learn approach to life. Just in the past year, he's learned to brainstorm and write paragraphs, and has learned a lot of grammar and spelling.<br />
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After such a lengthy process of learning how to read and write, over the course of <i>years</i>, it has taken me by complete surprise that this is the year that my oldest became both an avid reader and a pretty darn good writer. For example, just since summer, he has read many novels for pure pleasure. A few that come to mind are: <u>The Book Thief</u>; six of the <u>Artemis Fowl</u> series; <u>Ender's Game</u>; all three in the <u>Hunger Games</u> series; <u>The Shining</u>; the <u>Gunslinger</u> series; and so on.<br />
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In addition, he is taking a high school Literature course this year with a group of five other homeschooled kids, and has worked through several assigned books this fall, including <u>Frankenstein</u>, <u>A Jury of Her Peers</u>, <u>Silas Marner</u>, and Shakespeare's <u>Much Ado About Nothing</u>. All together, this is a pretty impressive listing of significantly-sized and sometimes-weighty books for a boy who, until this year, would not have been considered a reader by anyone's definition!<br />
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In addition, through the Literature course, he prepared several written assignments this fall. I helped in minor ways with all of his writing assignments - but my contributions were 15% at most of the entire effort required and were limited to keyboarding the assignments into the computer and helping with punctuation and spelling and the like. The ideas and the creativity and the words were all Matthew's.<br />
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I can hardly believe that my boy, who could not read until four years ago, and who has learned to write in the past year, is now fully capable of taking (and succeeding at!) a high school English Lit class with kids who are mostly older than him, and that he is a fully capable reader! It actually kinda blows my mind!<br />
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Clearly I am proud of the work he has been doing; but truthfully, I feel relief more than any other feeling! Such relief. One never really knows, when doing things so differently than the mainstream, how these things will turn out. Homeschooling is a gamble...it still is. But sometimes, just sometimes, the risks we take pay off in big ways, and when they do, it is so amazing to see the payoffs manifest in our children. My 14-year-old is <i>doing</i> stuff...growing, developing, emerging into his own unique and talented (and sometimes difficult) self, and I couldn't be prouder and more relieved than I am to see him begin to take flight.<br />
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I leave you with a story Matthew wrote for his Lit class last month. He was to write a narrative essay of no more than two pages, and the subject was about WWII and the importance of friendship. He was to employ the use of similes, metaphors and personification, and to engage his senses as he wrote scenes. This was also a great opportunity for Matthew to do some research about WWII: he researched concentration camps and the cities nearby; what bombs sounded like when they fell; about the people who hid Jewish families at great risk to themselves; the role of the SS; how some Jewish people were able to be out and about and others not; the methodical processes undertaken by the Nazis as they burned books and closed down Jewish businesses; when the concentration camps were liberated; how people were rescued from the concentration camps and found their way home; and so on. It was a great learning experience.<br />
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Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little piece by Matthew!<br />
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<i>Every day was the same. The same dusty little shop. The same worn out faces. The same terror that I might never see my father again or that I'd lose my mother, too. The war was in full swing, with bombs dropping like flies on the city of Munich, where we lived. My family lived in fear of the Nazis; they were burning the books and possessions of Jewish people, and hunting them down to kill them or take them into concentration camps. My mother and I looked a little more German than Jewish, with our dirty blond hair and pale blue eyes, so we still enjoyed some freedom to be outside, but I'd seen my father ripped away from our family a few months ago, presumably dragged off to Dachau. I had taken his place as the head of the family, tending to the shop by myself because my mother, Berta, was growing older and weaker every day from the struggle for existence. There was almost no work to be done anymore, though; Jewish businesses were being boycotted and many of them had been barricaded and shut down. Any business we still did get was from my neighbour Hans; he and his parents brought me their work to do, and gave us most of the food we ate.</i><br />
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<i>Hans and I were both fifteen. We'd known each other since we were toddlers running around on the street we shared, and we'd gone to school together until all of the craziness started a couple of years ago. We were best friends, and somehow more than that in the past couple of years when his family had done so much to keep mine safe. We knew each other's houses and parents almost as well as we knew our own, and it had never mattered to either of our families that they were German and we were Jewish. In this crazy world where friends and neighbours had been ripped apart all too often, they had a depth of goodness in their hearts that I could barely comprehend. The Kramers had stuck with us, providing not just food but also shelter when the bombs dropped or when we heard rumours of an SS raid coming to our street. Even thought they risked their lives for us with every act of kindness, they did so simply and quietly and without question.</i><br />
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<i>Standing there in the shop, I was pulled deep into an undertow of overwhelming thoughts. Was my father ok? Was he dead or alive? Would I make it through today? What if we were caught, or the Kramers were discovered to be protecting us?</i><br />
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<i>Somewhere in the distance, I heard a familiar, high pitched whistling sound just as Hans burst through the shop door and snapped me out of my daze. "A bomb," he shouted. "Lots of them. Sol, quick. Bring your sister into our basement. Your mother is there already." Hans gave orders like a commander giving orders to soldiers. I sprinted to the back of the shop where our home was, and grabbed my little sister, Miriam, who was sleeping in a bundle of old blankets. I'd been looking after her that afternoon while my mother did some cleaning for Hans' mother. I ran through the back door of the shop, and bolted down the lane for Hans' house a few doors down. Terrified, I could feel my heart pounding, a drum in my chest. Bombs screamed all around me, and the all-too-familiar smell of sulphur singed the inside of my nose. I could feel every point of gravel digging into the soles of my bare feet, and my body tensed in anticipation of the next shock wave to hit the ground.</i><br />
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<i>I shoved the Kramers' back door open and raced down the stairs to the basement, holding a crying Miriam in trembling arms. I glanced around quickly at our home away from home. The corner below the stairs held blankets and the various meagre possessions that we'd accumulated over time since we'd been invited to use the Kramers' basement for protection. Hans was already there, with his parents and my mother. Mrs. Kramer breathed a sigh of relief and smiled shakily at me while my mother ran to us, taking Miriam and thanking God that we were safe and together. Outside the whistling sound of bombs dropped lower in pitch as the weapons fell low and struck somewhere nearby. Their lust for destruction was endless. Tremors like from the aftershock of an earthquake rippled through me from the floor, knocking me to the cold cement. It was Mr. Kramer who picked me up and smiled at me, comforting me. We all sat down against a wall and held hands, praying, waiting it out.</i><br />
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<i>And then it was over. Silent. The whistling was no more and we five still sat together, unwilling to give up the comfort of each other's presence. Miriam slept. Dust from the ceiling still drifted down, and a few pieces of plaster fell like chunks of salt; the air, our skin, everything was grimy. Finally, Mrs. Kramer stood up and said that we should wait, that we would have some food before we went out to see the destruction. Kind, even hospitable, to the last.</i><br />
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<i>+++</i><br />
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<i>Soon after that last time in the Kramers' basement we heard that the war was ending. The bombings stopped and we heard rumours that the Allies had freed Dachau. We waited forever to hear news of my father. Minutes felt like hours; hours felt like days; days felt like weeks.</i><br />
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<i>In early May, 1945, while I was tending to the shop, I heard a truck outside. I went to the window and looked out the door. There was a white truck with a red cross on it, and a man who appeared to be in his forties got out of the passenger seat. When he looked up, I saw the man I had been wondering about and waiting for for so long. It was my father. As I ran towards him, I knew in that moment that those terrible and endless days of war were over. In the coming months and years, as we gradually rebuilt our lives, we kept our close connection with the friends who had become family. In honour of the Kramers' unforgettable kindness to us, I would spend those years finding ways to help build community and structure in our broken world.</i><br />
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</style>Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-560695244471612022018-09-29T14:22:00.002-05:002018-09-29T14:22:31.310-05:00Sticking with ItYes, another plant-based post. I realize that this may not be of interest to everyone in the same way that it is for me, and I'm sorry to consume so much air time on the subject. I do hope you will feel comfortable simply to roll your eyes at me and then move on to what will surely be a more interesting blog at another http site! I'm just here because it is my favourite venue to work out my thoughts and it's a way to share with family and friends and interest people what's going on in our little world...or maybe just in my brain.<br />
<br />
I've been more than a little surprised that I've been able to stick with this plant-based eating thing for about four months now. That's a third of a year and we're all still alive...and, dare I say, flourishing?<br />
<br />
I've rarely stuck with a food plan / diet for as long as this, though I've desperately needed to for many years now! The longest I ever stayed with a diet was my year at Weight Watchers, where I dutifully recorded everything I ate, counted points, attended weekly meetings for 52 weeks...and lost two pounds! Two! What a waste of a year that was; I will never, ever repeat it. I appreciate that many have benefited from Weight Watchers (and/or many other such programs) and are convinced of its merits; but it absolutely did not work for my body and I was very faithful, other than not exercising as much as was recommended at the time. I've tried other things, too, over the years, and finally gave up about 10-12 years ago when I just decided that maybe the simpler thing was to eat as healthily as possible and just accept my body.<br />
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I mostly have done this. For over a decade (until a few months ago), we ate pasture-raised, organic meats; organic produce as much as possible; organic milk (mostly because I was trying to delay the onset of my daughter's puberty); and so on. I meal planned healthy meals and served them up pretty dutifully. And gained/lost a few pounds along the way, depending on the year.<br />
<br />
And then along came the documentary put out by Netflix: <i>Forks Over Knives</i>. I've explained in a previous post how Geoff and I watched that together while on vacation in early May of this year, and how it changed our outlook on food from that very day onwards.<br />
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Since the end of May, I have been eating a plant based diet, mostly whole foods (though junk food plant food is definitely possible and we have certainly fallen into that trap from time to time). And despite ongoing and intense cheese cravings and occasional mouthfuls of that lovely dairy addiction, I have stuck to this plant-eating thing. I have been calm about it, and undeterred in my pursuit of it, in a way that I have never been about any other diet.<br />
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The truth is that I don't view plant-based eating as a diet. Not at all. I have cringed even at the necessity of including the words <i>plant-based eating</i> in the same sentence as the word <i>diet</i>, except in that I'm using the word <i>diet</i> in the broadest possible terms to mean <i>the food that we eat as part of our daily routine</i>. The word <i>diet</i> conjures up bad and self-defeating associations for me. Somehow this way way of eating is different for me than any other way I've ever eaten. And maybe as a result of that difference, I feel like maybe it's more sustainable than any other way I've eaten before. It just make sense to me to eat this way, even while it's a challenge to re-learn everything I've lived with for so many decades.<br />
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Recently, while Geoff was out of town, he and I were texting about the latest plant-based book that I'm reading: <u>Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease</u>, by Calwell Esselstyn. I got the cookbook to go with it and I'm finding some really good new options to add to my list of meal/snack ideas. Geoff texted that he was impressed (maybe surprised??) by how I have pursued this new-to-us way of eating. Here's what I wrote back to him:<br />
<br />
<b><i>"In all honesty, it's the first way of eating that has ever truly, immediately, and deeply made sense to me. Deep down I don't believe that we should have to count calories or points, eat weird food, deny ourselves food when we are hungry, kill animals for our satisfaction, substitute fake ingredients for whole, etc. Deep down, I believe that the closer we eat to nature, the better off we'll be, simply because that's how God designed our world. So even thought I've tried (and failed at) many other food plans and diets and theories, this is the one that is most consistent with my internal beliefs and how I view God. I hope I can stay with it long term for this reason and believe it's why I've been able to stay with it so far."</i></b><br />
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That's exactly how I feel. It doesn't mean that I am imposing what I believe on anyone else; but for me, this is what makes the most sense...and I hope to be able to stick with it for the long term because it's so consistent with what I believe otherwise. And it really seems to benefit me: My insides feel so much better; I've experienced the healing of several skin, and other, issues that have plagued me for a very long time; I'm off of most of my blood pressure medication now (which I've been on for three years); I've lost a little bit of weight; I (oddly) don't need quite as much sleep as I used to; I have a little more energy than I used to (which I notice most in the evenings, when it seems like I still have enough capacity for one or two tasks that I didn't have before); and it feels intuitively like I'm finally headed in the right direction.<br />
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There are two more things that I want to change over the coming months, as I continue in this trajectory:<br />
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* first, I want to reduce the amount of oils we use. The more I read, the more I begin to believe that they're not necessary; and because I'm overweight, surely I could benefit from this reduction. I've already begun this process. Last week I eliminated oils from the frying pan; when cooking up veggies, as I do many times/week, I use water or a little veggie broth if the pan gets too dry, and this has been working beautifully without any noticeable taste change. My next step will be to eliminate oils from salad dressings - something that may prove a little more challenging. I've begun to look for recipes to experiment with, and know that this might take a little longer. But that's ok; I'm in this for the long haul.<br />
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* second, grrr, and I really don't want to write this down...I need to exercise more intentionally. Deep down I believe that if I were to exercise more, I would lose some of the bulk that I'm carrying. I've definitely lost a few just by changing how we eat, but I could kick that portion up a notch by exercising more. I'm contemplating rejoining the nearby Fieldhouse gym again...the one that the kids and I joined for two months earlier this year before my achilles tendon started ripping again (I think it's in better condition now, though). I truly despise all forms of exercise, weight bearing or non-weight bearing. I hate sweating!! And because I now experience the oh-so-lovely (NOT!) hot flashes that signify peri-menopause, I sweat so much at times that to contemplate exercising in order to bring it on <i>intentionally</i> seems more than I can bear at times. But sweat I must if I really want to continue this healthy trajectory. So I must pursue this again, like it or not.<br />
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And that's it for now. If anyone had said six months ago that this is what I'd be processing, I would have laughed. Loudly.<br />
<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-83747271386706893332018-09-27T11:35:00.000-05:002018-09-29T10:28:23.843-05:00Dare I Call Myself Vegan? I'm Not Sure.You may have noticed that between my first post on the subject of plant-based eating a couple of months ago and my post of a couple of days ago, I've begun to use slightly different language to describe what we're doing. In my first post on the subject, I noted that we are now eating vegan. Now I tend to talk more about plant-based eating. There's a reason for this change in language. As I get more familiar with the <i>culture</i> that is encompassed within the spectrum of veganism, the more I realize that we may not entirely qualify for such a title. Yes, it's a simpler term and I'll likely continue to use it on occasion, because most non-vegan people understand its usage...but I'm intentionally shifting a little away from it.<br />
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There really is a whole spectrum of vegan people out there....waaay more diverse than I'd ever considered before jumping on the bandwagon. For many, this way of eating is about way more than a way of eating - it encompasses an entire lifestyle that includes animal activism. For people at this point on the spectrum, eating vegan is very much about animal rights and activism - how one eats falls within that larger purpose. Not that long ago, I read an argument on Facebook about who was entitled to call themselves vegan - and could a person who still carried a leather purse or owned other leather goods call themselves vegan? The jury seemed somewhat out on the answer to that question, but I'd say that more people than not felt that true veganism meant that as leather goods in our homes need replacing, they be replaced with items that are not involved in the harming of animals. And that makes total sense to me. One of the benefits of eating this way is that we aren't the cause of animal suffering or death, and I like that. But it's not the initial reason we made the change to eat this way, and I don't claim to be an activist.<br />
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What am I supposed to do about that as someone who might otherwise call herself vegan?<br />
<br />
In addition, I had a grandfather who was a hunter - a big-time, big-game hunter who travelled the world. He was born and lived in an era when that was a celebrated pursuit, and something that only the wealthy could do. He <i>loved</i> it; it was a passion of his, and he and my grandmother travelled extensively to fulfill this love. He hunted, gave all of the meat to the natives of the land, and kept the hide. He had the largest trophy room in the entire country of Canada in his day! True story. He died about eleven years ago, in his late 90s, and with him passed an era of hunters - that's just mostly not done these days (or at least, not approved of by much of the world...and certainly not by those who espouse veganism in the fullest sense of the word). Most of my grandfather's trophies have been donated and sold elsewhere now, but I inherited a few of his pieces. For example, I am the owner of two buffalo hides, an elephant foot, a zebra skin, boar tusks, and two deer head trophies. All of them inherited, all beautiful, all beloved by my children.<br />
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What am I supposed to do about that as someone who might otherwise call herself vegan?<br />
<br />
Also, I have a son who has inherited his great grandfather's love of hunting. He is <i>driven</i> by a love of fishing and hunting. He lives, talks, breathes hunting and fishing, and most of the conversations I have with him in the car, as we go about life, are about hunting and fishing particulars. This is <i>not</i> my interest, never has been, but he has been this way for at least five years and I don't know where he got it from other than through passed-down genes from his great-grandfather. He's careful with his pocket money, and the only thing he spends his money on are things he needs to further these interests. Ironically, he has been the easiest of my children to adopt a plant-based eating habit, and it is not uncommon for him to pack plant-based foods for snacking on while in the fishing boat. He is so very proud to be a hunter and fisher. What do I do about <i>that</i> conundrum? I don't <i>like</i> that he hunts, and it actually turns my stomach. But I support him and his unique interests (that don't need to be the same as mine), and he <i>thrives</i> on these things.<br />
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What on earth am I supposed to do about that as someone who might otherwise call herself vegan?<br />
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The simple solution, I think, is to describe myself as Whole Food Plant Based living. I'm not sure that I qualify as a vegan in the truest sense of the word.<br />
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Thoughts?<br />
<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-14893075147500069662018-09-24T09:42:00.000-05:002018-09-29T10:27:55.444-05:00Eating Plant Based: The Kids. Protein. Meal Planning.Well, it's almost two months since my last post, and I may as well pick up where I left off.<br />
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Geoff and I are still eating plant based foods. It's been about four months for me now, and it's mostly gone pretty well. Eating this way is still a big adjustment for me from a cooking perspective, and I'm slow to change that which has been my reality for 50+ years! I still struggle with intense cheese cravings, and every once in a while I eat something with cheese in/on it. But I'm going strong, and getting better at this every week.<br />
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One of the first questions I always get, when someone learns of our lifestyle change, is about the kids. And that's a great question. Having children who don't necessarily want to pursue the same lifestyle complicates life a little, for sure. But I decided early on that, although the kids' diets would surely change as Geoff's and mine did, I don't need to worry about forcing them to choose this lifestyle. Matthew and Lizzie have actually been fine with this change, although they occasionally eat meat or dairy. Seth has been more resistant and, although he eats everything that I prepare, he still asks daily if what we're eating is vegan (ever hopeful that one day I'll say 'no'). Over time, everything is smoothing itself out and we've allowed for huge adjustments for the kids.<br />
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The kids mostly eat what I eat these days and three or four consecutive days can pass by where they have eaten 100% or close to 100% plant based. I've never considered myself to be a short order cook and have never cooked more than one meal for a dinner to accommodate my kids' likes/dislikes; and at least partly as a result of this, my kids have always been good eaters - thankfully, they were already good vegetable, fruit and legume eaters before Geoff and I made a change to becoming plant based. They eat what we eat, just as they always have. So it hasn't, perhaps, been as huge a shift for them as I'd feared it might be. And I don't mind if they choose meat or dairy products at other times - I'm not here to foist my desire for change onto them, and I recognize that they'll have to make their own choices about how they want to eat as they get older and more independent. I figure all I can do now is feed them the best I know how, as I've always done...and hope that they are healthier and a little wiser for it in the long term.<br />
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I have definitely noticed that, because the kids tend to follow what Geoff and I do, certain things have definitely changed for them. The most basic thing is that they rarely eat meat any more - and really only when they are eating out of the house (if my parents take us out for dinner, for example, or if they are at a friend's house). During the summer, I would occasionally include a bit of meat at lunch for them; for example, if I was putting out ingredients to make sandwiches, I'd put out a small package of meat for them to add to theirs. But even that began dying a natural death when the kids discovered that they loved the falafels that I was including in my wraps with veggies, etc. I think, too, that as they are more exposed to a plant-based diet, their <i>tastes</i> have even begun to change a little. For example, Geoff and I continued to purchase dairy milk for the kids this summer, because they have always been <i>huge</i> milk consumers (like, four big jugs of milk every 7-9 days!). But as I continued to put out jugs of ice water, and as Geoff and I quietly chose to drink almond/oat/cashew milks, their milk consumption started to rapidly, and naturally, decline. By early August, I was throwing out the last third of the <i>one</i> milk jug I'd bought for the week; and by late August I just stopped buying milk and the kids haven't once asked for it. They drink water and almond milk (and even that has changed from sweetened to unsweetened and I don't think they even <i>noticed</i>). There are sooo many ways to include calcium in our diets, and plants are so rich in so many nutrients, that we really don't need to be drinking cow's milk. I'm glad that the kids are drinking virtually no dairy milk any more, and a lot more water.<br />
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The other thing that people keep asking me about it protein - how are we ensuring that we get enough protein in our diets? I had that concern initially, too, until I started reading more about it and understanding that, as a western culture, we are way obsessed with protein and eating far more than our bodies actually need. As one researcher/doctor put it, in the western world he has never once heard of someone having a protein <i>deficiency</i>! I'd also just add that there is plenty of protein to be found in vegetables (especially in the dark green ones), legumes, nuts, and seeds. As long as we eat a varied and balanced diet, I don't have to spend even a second worrying about whether or not we are getting enough protein.<br />
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I am definitely continuing to read and research about the nutrients that our bodies need, to ensure that we maintain healthy bodies. So on the one hand, I'm trying as hard as I can to be on top of this in my non-scientific brain. On the other hand, I'm <i>not</i> super worried about getting sufficient nutrients; in so many ways, we're eating more health-fully than we've ever eaten.<br />
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It is still a significant challenge for me, to eat plant based. It has been such a huge change, despite having been mostly healthy eaters for years prior to this decision. I struggle with meal ideas at times, for example. I had no idea until this summer how much I had planned every meal around what meat we would consume every week - we would have beef one night, fish another night, chicken on two nights, one vegetarian night, etc etc. Once I had the animal protein figured out (other than for the vegetarian night), I would plan the rest of the meal around that. Sometimes it still feels like I'm preparing all of the side dishes that I used to serve alongside a chunk of meat, only now it's <i>all</i> the side dishes (and with some modifications). Everything used to centre (unconsciously) around the meat and how I'd prepare it. And I was good at it!<br />
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To help with this meal planning dilemma, I have begun creating a list of meal and snack ideas so that I can resume menu planning - which has been a lifesaver for me for many years already, and something that I have sorely missed over the last few months. I am poring through my plant based recipes and recipe books to create this list, and I am looking forward to it being done in the next 2-3 weeks, as I have time. I'm hoping that this will be helpful as we continue into our busy winter months ahead.<br />
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So there's my progress report for now. I have one or two more thoughts to put to paper, but that'll have to wait for another day! I hope this hasn't been too boring!<br />
<br />
<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-1653978395255973222018-08-01T17:55:00.001-05:002018-08-01T17:55:02.102-05:00A Change of Lifestyle...Something I Never Ever Thought About Before!Something I never, ever, like in a gazillion years, <i>ever</i> thought I'd hear coming out of my mouth are words that I verbalized just a few weeks ago for the first time. I was at a restaurant and a server asked me if I'd like cheese overtop what I'd ordered. My response: "No thanks...I'm vegan."<br />
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Yes, it's true. I don't know for how long it will be true, but it is for this period of my life. I am eating vegan. It's still strange to say that out loud. Never in a million years...<br />
<br />
The journey started about 10 weeks ago, when the kids and I were on our six week road trip west (something else I need to write about at some point!). Geoff joined the kids and me for a week of our road trip, and the five of us spent that week on Vancouver Island, in the Ucluelet/Tofino area. On our second night there, Geoff said that he'd had a doctor's appointment while we were away, and that the doctor had told him that he had somewhat high cholesterol. About ten or fifteen years ago, Geoff had received the same diagnosis from our family doctor and he'd gone on meds for about 18 months until it was at normal levels. This time, though, rather than jumping onto the medication band wagon, Geoff asked the doctor if he could investigate dietary options first. Because his cholesterol wasn't terribly high, the doctor suggested he try the dietary approach first for a few months.<br />
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That night in Ucluelet, Geoff said that he'd heard of a documentary on Netflix that he'd begun to watch already, and he asked if I wanted to watch it with him. We did. And that changed something for us.<br />
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The documentary is called <i>Forks Over Knives</i> and it's about a doctor/researcher/scientist who has done extensive research into the impact of a Whole Foods Plant-Based Diet on people with long term illnesses or very specific medical issues (such as high cholesterol). They involved people in their studies who had been on medications for many, many years for heart issues, diabetes, and so on. And in their studies, most of those people were able to eliminate their medications after only <i>weeks</i> of being on a plant based diet. There were many other things discussed on the documentary, but those real-life stories had a big impact on us/me.<br />
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Geoff began eating vegan immediately after returning home from spending that week with us. I began to do more research during the remaining three weeks that the kids and I were on our road trip, and whenever possible, I began making food choices that were more in line with a plant based lifestyle (a hard thing to do when traveling!). Then, within a few days of the kids and I arriving home on May 22, I decided to give a whole foods, plant-based lifestyle a wholehearted try.<br />
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No meat. No dairy. No eggs.<br />
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<i>Why</i>? you might ask.<br />
<ul>
<li>Well, there's the obvious answer of Geoff's cholesterol and my wish to support his efforts to reduce those numbers naturally. But it's about more than that. </li>
<li>There's a little diabetes running in my family, and I've always been careful to ask for blood work that shows my blood sugars for that reason; about three or four years ago, the blood work showed that my blood sugar was near the top of normal. I haven't had the same results in the years since then, but I'm always aware of that prospect and would rather avoid any kind of diabetes diagnosis in my future if possible. </li>
<li>Third, I definitely have a family history of high blood pressure - my mom and grandparents, and some cousins all began on high blood pressure meds in their mid forties, and my dad when he was a little older. I also started on blood pressure meds in my late forties...three years ago. There's a lot of research suggesting that eliminating animal products from our diet can positively impact blood pressure. </li>
<li>Fourth, deep down, I'm not convinced that we need to put animal fats and animal proteins into our bodies in order to be healthy - in fact, it may just be the opposite of that. There are so many ways to get protein into our bodies that have nothing to do with animals. And I <i>definitely</i> believe that, in general throughout North America, we consume far too much animal and far too few vegetables and fruit. Can anyone disagree with that one?? </li>
<li>Finally, although I didn't start this journey specifically because of animal-cruelty issues, I very much like the idea that I am currently not contributing to the problem, either from an environmental standpoint or from the standpoint of not killing animals for human consumption. </li>
</ul>
<div>
So that's the <i>why</i> of it. :)</div>
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As I write this, it's the end of July, and I'm still on the same course. It hasn't been a perfect journey, but it's been a good start. In the first days of making the change back in late May, I ate two bites of chicken. In the eight or so weeks since then I twice grated a little parmesan overtop my pasta and I once ate three chocolates with milk-based caramel on the inside; and I suspect that, once or twice, the bread I've eaten has had egg/butter in it. Also, when Matthew catches a fish in the lake and fries it up, I always have a bite or two of that - even though it doesn't particularly interest me to do so at the moment, I support his love of fishing and it's important to him/me that I try it. And I still occasionally drink my tea with a little honey in it (strict vegans don't eat honey because it is sourced from animals), and I'm of the opinion that I'm ok with a bit of honey. And that's been it...otherwise, I think I've been completely vegan for the past nine or ten weeks.<br />
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I'm not really one for half-hearted attempts at things; rather than start at a gradual pace, which most vegan gurus seem to recommend, I launched into things immediately...an overnight change. That made things rather difficult at first, because I frankly didn't know what to feed anyone any more. After about a week, I began to feel very gloomy and hopeless, and I basically left Geoff and the kids to forage for food on their own for the next 2-3 weeks. I just wanted to give up on everything. We've been pretty dang healthy eaters for almost fifteen years already (pasture-raised meats, lots of veggies and fruits, organic everything whenever possible), and I'm a pretty good cook. But this felt like a whole new world for me. I just couldn't bring myself to do <i>anything</i> - I just kept eating whole grain toast with guacamole or hummus, and lots of veggies and fruits while I tried to adapt...my mind and heart more than anything. Even though it was 100% my choice to try out this change, I was resentful of it and really, really did not want to be engaging with it.<br />
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But I managed to stick to it through the worst of it. My body was clearly adapting and my heart had to catch up a little. I've been coming out of my state of gloom with some new understandings about myself and a new willingness to get back into the kitchen to do what I love: cook...just in a new way.<br />
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There was one meal in particular that changed my outlook on things in a good way. I'd been researching recipes online like crazy, and one stew that I prepared for a dinner changed everything - it was so unbelievably good that I said to Geoff that if I could find 30 or more recipes that I loved as much as that meal, I could be vegan for the rest of my life. It was that good - full of veggies (onions, garlic, sweet potato, lots of cauliflower, etc), coconut milk, and peanut butter. We downed the entire pot of it that first time...and most times since then!<br />
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I fully expected to crave meat and have been shocked that I haven't had more of an urge to eat a little here and there. But, other than the exceptions noted, I just haven't! Only once did I really struggle big-time with saying no to meat (when my parents served up traditional German meat buns...a favourite treat of my past). I <i>have</i> struggled with the loss of cheese...that's been the hardest thing for sure. And sometimes I just miss scrambling an egg in the mornings. Who knows? I may eventually morph into more of a vegetarian - where I still have a moratorium on meat, but consume cheese and eggs once in a while.<br />
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But for now, I'm mostly good with this choice and getting a little better at making the needed changes.<br />
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More to come...<br />
<br />
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<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-5807165382886845162018-07-21T12:09:00.000-05:002018-07-21T12:09:11.399-05:00It's Been a WhileTruly, it has been a long time since I've blogged...five months or so. That's a long time, and I have missed it.<br />
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The challenge has been that my kids are no longer comfortable with me posting extensively about their lives. I have always tried to be sensitive to what they may or may not want me to write about them, and have asked them on many occasions if they were ok with me writing about certain aspects of their lives/personalities. Until recently, the answer to those questions were that is is fine. But then, on one of my last posts, I posted something about Lizzie that a family friend ended up talking with her about and she was terribly upset about how I had worded a few things and asked me to take the post down...which I did immediately. And since then, I have been unable to bring myself to post. I was embarrassed that I'd embarrassed her, and embarrassed that I didn't know better. So I stopped for a time.<br />
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I'm always going to write a little about my family - after all, it's the most all-consuming part of my life on a day-to-day basis. But I need, also, to find new ways of expressing myself. And I hope to do just that in the days ahead.<br />
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Maybe everyone's checked out of my blog after such long absences. But if you're still here, I'm glad. I hope you are, too.<br />
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Sending out a hug to anyone still here.<br />
<br />
RuthHi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-84575444182848106892018-02-05T20:31:00.002-06:002018-02-05T20:33:37.285-06:00Farewell to 2017I've finally managed to complete my usual year-end questions...better late than never! :)<br />
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<b>1. What did you do in 2017 that you'd never done before?</b><br />
Geoff and I became cottage owners.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions and will you make more for next year?</b></span><br />
I didn't make any new resolutions for 2017, though I did decide early in the year that I wanted to continue with my 2016 habit of tracking our finances for the year. I didn't entirely meet this goal, as I tracked our monthly cash flow only through to the end of August. I plan to resume now in January for 2018, because it really, really made a difference to our bottom line in 2016 and I wish I'd continued it through to the end of 2017.<br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
I have made no resolutions for 2018.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>3. Did anyone close to you die?</b></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Yes, sadly, we lost my beautiful sister-in-law, Cathy, on October 16. It's hard to write that...I can still hardly believe it sometimes, and the hugeness of it snatches my breath unexpectedly at times.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>4. Did you travel? Did you visit other countries? Where did you go?</b></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Just two short trips to Vancouver this year...the first to say good-bye to Cathy in August...the second to be at her Celebration of Life in October. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">T</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">he cottage consumed the rest of our vacation time, and all of our budget.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>5. What would you like to have in the coming year that you lacked in the year past?</b></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* More one-on-one time with each of the kids.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* More time with Geoff...on date nights, etc.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>6. What date(s) from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory and why?</b></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">June 13: hearing that my BIL, Andrew, had been in a terrible accident and was in hospital with burns to much of his body. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">October 16: hearing that my sister-in-law, Cathy, had passed away. When we celebrated her life twelve days later, it was the most beautiful service I've ever been to...it was like she was there. We talked, laughed, shared memories and other deep thoughts, and it was as beautiful a time as I've ever experienced.</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>7. What was your biggest achievement of the year and why? <i>or</i> What things are you proud of?</b></span><br />
Pulling out some of my dusty conflict resolution skills to help out a friend and some of the people she worked with. I had a strong sense that I was responding to something God asked me to do, and I felt totally at peace and confident throughout these months. I also really loved using some of my old professional skills and I think that the grey hairs I've accumulated in the last 5-6 years actually lent some wisdom and experience to my work. It was nice to know, too, that my contribution made a difference to others.<br />
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<b>8. What was your biggest failure of the year and why?</b><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I think I suck at building family traditions. I tend to defer to spontaneity rather than sticking to tradition, and I regret this. I want my kids to grow up and know as adults that at Christmas time we..., and that for birthdays or easter, we..., and so on.</span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />Another thing is that I barely scratched the surface of all of my year's intended organizational projects. There are seriously so many things that need doing around here.</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>9. Did you suffer illness or injury?</b></span><br />
The only illness I suffered was just a week or two ago, right before Christmas, when I had the flu for three days.<br />
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At the very beginning of the year, January 01, 2017, Matthew careened off of a tobogganing hill and broke his arm in two places.<br />
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My Mom was in the hospital for the first six months of the year; my brother-in-law was in hospital for ten days after being involved in a terrible explosion...we're so thankful we didn't lose him; and of course, my SIL Cathy suffered so much before finally leaving us for a far better place.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>10. What was the best/biggest/most novel thing you bought?</b></span><br />
Definitely our cottage...it cost a pretty penny and we're back into having a mortgage! But it's been well worth it so far...we had a blast there this spring/summer/fall!<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>11. Whose behaviour merited celebration/recognition?</b></span><br />
My brother, David. How he acted in the months leading up to my SIL's passing was remarkable. His commitment and loyalty to her was incredible to witness.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>12. Whose behaviour made you appalled and/or depressed?</b></span><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">One word here: <i>Trump</i>...again. Sometimes Justin Trudeau, too.</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>13. Where did most of your money go?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Easy. Cottage.</span>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>14. What did you get really, really excited about?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A little sadly, I can't remember anything that I got really, really excited about in 2017. I feel a little <i>flat</i> in some ways...not enough to be concerned, but enough that I realize that I'd like to feel excited about something again in the coming year.</span>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>15. What song(s) did you enjoy this year?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Music moves me like little else does...I can get so lost in it. I could probably name 100+ individual songs I've loved this year, but the ones that some first to mind for this year are:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* Two Cellos (if you've never heard/seen them, go check them out on Youtube...amazing)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* Peter Bence...particularly playing Sia's <i>Cheap Thrills </i>and Michael Jackson's <i>Black or White</i>.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* 21 Pilots...lots of their stuff...some fav songs that come to mind are <i>Screen</i>, <i>Ode to Sleep</i>, <i>Car Radio</i>, etc</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* Elevation Worship's <i>O Come to the Altar</i></span><br />
* Christina Perri - the stuff of hers that I love isn't new, but still...<i>A Thousand Years...</i><br />
* Rachel Platten's <i>Fight Song</i><br />
* <i>Havana, </i>by Camila Cabello<br />
* Fink's <i>Looking Too Closely</i><br />
<i>* </i>Pink's W<i>hat About Us? </i>(her voice...)<br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* anything Matt Redman</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* maybe even a little Meagan Trainor's <i>Better When I'm Dancing</i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>16. Compared to this time last year, are you:</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>i. happier or sadder?</b> Well, I've certainly struggled with sadness this year as my sister-in-law battled for her life...it's no surprise that it's difficult when someone we love suffers and passes away. And yet, I've had some very happy and fulfilled moments this year, too, mostly during the months I was using my conflict res skills again. And I've also felt more peaceful and relaxed this year during our months at the cottage, when it was so good to just <i>rest</i> a little more, and relax. Finally, I've also felt more comfortable in my skin this year...to be more ok to be myself.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>ii. thinner or fatter? </b> Not much change on that front, I'm afraid. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>iii. richer or poorer?</b> Definitely poorer! Between the purchase of the cottage and the purchases we made towards it this summer, definitely poorer!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>17. What do you wish you'd done more of?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* more time listening to music.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* more time reading out loud to the kids. They're so into audio books over the past number of months and often seem to prefer that to being read aloud to by me. But I've missed our regular tea-and-reading-out-loud times, and want to resume this a little more often.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* I wish I'd played more games with the kids.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* more time going for walks with the kids and the dogs.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">* reading my bible.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>18. What do you wish you'd done less of?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Deviating from the school/weekday schedule that I thoughtfully created for our fall/winter.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>19. How did you spend Christmas Day?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For the first time in quite a long time, the five of us were alone together on Christmas morning. For many years we've spent it with family, either on a family trip or having my folks over for Christmas brunch. But this year we were on our own until early/mid afternoon, when we made our way to my parents' house for time and a meal together. It was a lovely day.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Geoff and I decided not to do gifts with the kids this year, other than a book and some PJs. It ended up being so ok to do this. The kids still got a gift or two from my folks, but it was just fine the way it was. In lieu of gifts, we are putting a little money aside for a road trip that the kids and I hope to make in spring. </span>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>20. What was your favourite tv program(s) in 2017?</b></span><br />
In no particular order:<br />
* Velvet<br />
* Timeless<br />
* Offspring<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>21. What's the best book you read this year?</b></span><br />
That's a hard one, but maybe I'd say <u>Beartown</u>, by Fredrik Backman. The Christmas book I received from Geoff may well be one of my favs of 2018, because Gregory David Robert's <u>Mountain Shadow</u> (sequel to one of my favourite books of all times, <u>Shantaram</u>) has started out to be <i>that good;</i> but we'll have to see what else I finish in 2018.<br />
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The kids and I also really liked reading the popular book <u>Wonder</u>, too, and we loved the movie.<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>22. What did you want and get?</b></span><br />
Hammocks for the cottage...heaven!<br />
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<b>23. What did you want and not get?</b><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I have enough of everything. More than enough. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>24. What was your favourite film?</b></span><br />
I saw almost no movies in theatres this year...unusual for me, because I love the cinema experience. But I continue to watch a few movies year after year and they continue to be amongst my favourites: <i>Anne of Green Gables</i> (the Meagan Follows version); <i>North and South</i> (with Richard Armitage...sigh); <i>Twilight</i> (yes, really, still); and <i>Pride & Prejudice</i> (I love all versions, but my fave is still the Matthew McFadden one). Oh, and <i>Far From the Madding Crowd</i>.<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>25. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I turned 51 in 2017. I spent the day at the cottage with my family...it was relaxed and great.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>26. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably satisfying?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sigh...a little weight loss...a little more physical activity.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Maybe a little better than in the past? I tried, regularly, to layer a shirt/jacket over a shirt - this is generally a pretty good look for me. I generally suck at clothing, though.</span> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>28. What kept you sane?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For a significant number of years, I have struggled with feeling incompetent in almost every area of my life. As a parent, as an adoptive parent, as a homeschooler, as a friend, as a daughter/sister/wife. I almost never feel competent or <i>enough</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This year, however, I had a few flashes of something different. I did some volunteer work for a school that two of my kids attend on Thursdays, and the type of work that I did was something I'm good at and hadn't practiced in a number of years. I had a glimpse into another aspect of the woman God created me to be, and it added a whole level of confidence to my very being that I haven't felt in a very long time.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>29. Which celebrity/public figure did you admire/fancy the most?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I'm not sure on this front. I think I'll defer this question until next year...I'm not a huge celebrity follower.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>30. Who was the best new person you met? Who did you meet for the first time?</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This year that credit goes to Francine. Technically, I met her in August of 2016, but that was just a meeting up. It's <i>this</i> year that our paths have become intertwined and I am glad now to count her amongst my friends.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the past few months of the year, I also met and began to get to know the two new women who, with their children, joined our homeschool Learning Centre on Tuesdays. Julie and Susan are, frankly, pretty amazing women and I am blessed to be getting to know them. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When we changed churches in fall'17, I also had opportunity to meet two women I'd been hearing lovely things about for several years. Kellie and Christie have been delightful to meet and start to get to know, and our paths seem to be crossing on at least a few fronts...and I'm loving it. Two of Kellie's boys have become friends with my Matthew now, and I'm really enjoying these connections.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Finally (and I know this list is going on for too long, especially given that the list was to mention one person!), I met a young man named Jordan in September, who is the Student Ministries Director at our new church. He blew me away with his passion for the kids attending the youth program, and it directly impacted my boys...especially Matthew. For a long time, we've been needing more church connections for our kids, and Jordan was for me, a beacon of hope in this journey. </span>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>31. Who did you miss?</b></span><br />
Oh, I miss Cathy. That's an easy one, and the one that fills my heart and eyes immediately. It's only been a few months since we lost her, and I miss her smile and her laugh every day.<br />
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<b>32. Any other highlights / lowlights of the year not already discussed?</b><br />
Definitely the cottage was a highlight this year. I would never have guessed how much, and how quickly, I would come to love being there.<br />
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<b>33. What valuable lesson(s) did you learn in 2017?</b><br />
It's not a <i>new</i> lesson, to be sure, but the need to be in the moment is so pressing...we never know how long we have on this earth, and I was reminded of that so many times throughout 2017.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "open sans" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span>Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-45232709860358802872018-02-04T23:00:00.002-06:002018-02-05T19:55:26.721-06:00Giving Up on Dreams for our KidsLast week, I made a difficult decision. I decided to pull all three of my kids out of piano lessons. Now, this might not seem like a big deal, but it was to me. Music is important to me...has been throughout my life. I played piano as a child/teen/young adult, played for choirs, played other instruments in bands and orchestras, etc etc.. These days, I don't have much opportunity to play for myself, but when I do, it's a balm for my soul. Music always is for me. It's been a big deal in my life, and I worked really hard as a teen to do well with it.<br />
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I always imagined that this is something I'd pass on to my kids...not only for the sheer beauty of being able to create music, but also because I am a firm believer that a musical education enhances a child's neurological connections and abilities. There's a lot of research about that...I needn't bother getting into that here. When one has two kids rooted in a trauma past, there is something very appealing about employing a method that will create new and significant neuro connections to help them deal with their stuff. And for any child, learning music is such a worthwhile pursuit.<br />
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The kids have been in piano lessons for the past 3-5 years (depending on the child). We've had a wonderful piano teacher, and for the most part it has gone well. The kids have always complained a little about not wanting to practice, but overall, it's gone pretty well.<br />
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Until sometime last year.<br />
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I'm not sure what happened, but they began to fuss more and more about practicing, beginning sometime last spring. The boys, in particular, were not happy. Then, in summer and fall, as Seth began to seriously learn how to read, we noticed in him what has happened every time he's been learning something new: As his reading skills began to emerge, other areas of knowledge tanked. It's almost uncanny how regularly this has happened over the years. He was learning to read and print, and correspondingly, his ability to remember other things (such as musical knowledge, note names, etc) dwindled. This child who had previously known all of his treble and bass clef notes, could suddenly remember <i>none</i> of them. And I do mean <i>none</i>. Nothing. Nada. Zip. It was as if he'd never seen a page of notes before. I would have been super concerned by the severe memory glitches if we hadn't seen this happen over and over again over the past 6.5 years. The knowledge always comes back at some point, but how long it takes depends on the 'bigness' of the other things being learned. And learning how to read and print are <i>huge</i> areas of learning; I figured it was going to take months (maybe more) before his musical knowledge returned. Our piano teacher was great at working with this new thing over several months, in order to take the pressure off of remembering notes - Stephen had Seth creating his own music, by ear, and helped him record and amplify his simple compositions; he created games for Seth to keep him engaged; and so on.<br />
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But it's just proven too difficult. Not just for Seth, but for the other two kids. They were all beginning to hate piano, to resist practicing so much that it became the number one thing that I dreaded every weekday. I was getting pretty frazzled and discouraged over the past several months and, sometime before Christmas, I began to wonder if I needed to pull the plug on lessons. It was increasingly difficult for me to manage practices and to contemplate pouring more money into ongoing lessons.<br />
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Finally, this past week, after six or eight weeks of contemplation, I advised our teacher that we were out, at least until fall, at which point I will re-evaluate.<br />
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It was a grief process for me to get to this point. I always assumed that my kids would grow up with music, would grow up to know how to read music, how to sing, how to play piano (and maybe an additional instrument, too). I just thought this would be the way it would be.<br />
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But at some point, we parents all know that our dreams for our kids need to be loosened in order that they can follow their own path. We can only place opportunity in front of them, not make them take advantage of it. It's hard for all of us at times, to let go of the things that we so hope our kids will take on and love to do. Hard, but necessary.<br />
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And so Monday will arrive tomorrow, as usual; but instead of heading out the door shortly past 11:00 to get to our lessons, we'll be at home for an extra two hours - likely doing some other form of school work. I know already that I'll love the extra time at home; we need more time at home to accomplish the school work that we are getting through.<br />
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But for now, maybe for the next few weeks, maybe in perpetuity, I'll just be a little sad on Mondays. While the kids will surely whoop and holler in their excitement about being free of practice time, I'll mourn the loss that they won't appreciate until years from now...if ever. Sometimes we just have to let go of some of the things that really matter and deal with the reality of what <i>is</i>. And that can be ok, too. I hope.<br />
<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-56233945642293389712017-11-01T23:27:00.002-05:002019-04-30T21:49:57.771-05:00In Memory of CathyLife changes so quickly, doesn't it?<br />
<br />
My sister-in-law died just over two weeks ago, and it feels like the trajectory of life has shifted a little now that she's no longer in my present or future. I came home last night from a weekend celebrating her life, and it was an awesome weekend - it's strange how, at such a hard and sad time, one can also feel <i>pleasure</i> in being with other people who loved her, and <i>joy</i> in remembering the one we all had in common. It was the most beautiful celebration of life I've ever been to, filled with white flowers and white candles, and it felt like Cathy was still with us throughout the service and the gatherings afterwards.<br />
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I knew Cathy for just over eight years and she entered our family during a difficult time. I wasn't really prepared to like her; in fact, I was resistant to liking her. But when I met her, she completely disarmed me by ignoring my outstretched hand and going in for the big hug. A warm, genuine hug that told me she was so glad to meet David's little sister. Her huge smile and laugh of pleasure softened my heart in just a moment. That first night, when I met her over a glass of wine on the beach in White Rock, BC, I knew she was going breathe fresh air into our family. I could see it, feel it...I knew why my brother loved her, and why I would, too. Very uncharacteristically, and almost against my will, I told her at the end of that first evening that I was going to love her.<br />
<br />
Who does that?<br />
<br />
But I did. And I did love her. I still do.<br />
<br />
Cathy was pretty awesome. She had her faults, as we all do, but she was pretty dang awesome. Fun-loving, warm, and without artifice, she drew people to her. She had a way of making people love her, with seemingly no effort on her part. It was her gift. She was good for our stodgy old family, and she was even better for my brother, who adored her from beginning to end. It's fascinating to watch two people bring out the very best in each other; and she certainly did that for my brother. He became a warmer, gentler, more in-tune person with her. It was obvious to anyone who watched them together; he glowed when she entered the room and sat up a little straighter as her eyes looked for his. And he stayed with her and cared for her through the worst time in their lives, with a stamina that I don't know if I'd have, and with a commitment to honouring her that I envy just a little.<br />
<br />
Many visits, many meals, many heart-to-heart conversations have been shared in the days since that first meeting. And my first impression of her never changed. <br />
<br />
Then, all too soon, I flew out to Vancouver in August, to say good-bye to Cathy. She had been sick for quite a while already, and we all knew the end was coming. I had a chance to tell her how much she meant to me, and I was able to thank her for loving my brother and our family and for making us all better people for knowing her. It's a hard thing to say good-bye when someone is still living; but such a gift.<br />
<br />
While I was still there, she rebounded a little and ended up making it home for another eight weeks. She was so grateful for that extra time; it meant she could say good-bye to almost everyone important in her life and tell them that she loved them, and why. She was able to share meals with people, deepen relationships, and do what she needed to do to prepare. That extra time was the one blessing during a very difficult time.<br />
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I want to learn from that. Life is so short and we don't know when it will end...we need to prepare. I want to be grateful for every day I have and to make the most of it. I want the people I love to know it, and I want to do the things that matter the most. I'm grateful to Cathy for teaching me that.<br />
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I noted earlier that Cathy is no longer in my future. But that's not true. I know exactly where she is now, and it's the same place that I'm going when I'm no longer in this world. Thank God!<br />
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Until we meet again, Cathy.<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><br />
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Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-85227037644118169102017-10-10T14:00:00.000-05:002018-12-10T13:05:12.418-06:00Raw Food Diets...Finn...and the Ridiculous Reaction of A Vet.I'm not sure if I've mentioned before or not that our dogs are on a raw food diet. They eat a combination of raw meats/organs/bones/tissues, along with fresh fruits and veggies, and other supplementary foods to boost the nutrients that their bodies need. We've done it from the beginning, and we really like it. Finn has a lot of allergies (some food, some environmental), and our choice of diet has helped her, too.<br />
<br />
Before we brought the dogs into our family, I researched the city's vets and landed on a vet that practices more holistic medicine for family pets. She is not only very supportive of raw food diets, but encourages it, along with practicing a reduced vaccination schedule (and using titre testing to determine if a vaccine is even needed). Whenever we have one of the dogs at the vet's office, we go through their whole food routine, and she is awesome about ensuring that we're providing the most balanced diet possible (which needs to be intentional when putting a raw food diet in place). When we wanted Finn spayed earlier this year, we again went back to this vet because they were willing to do a surgical procedure that not many vets will do...we had only her ovaries taken out, rather than having a full hysterectomy completed.<br />
<br />
Anyway, we've been very happy with our vet.<br />
<br />
About a month ago, we needed to take Finn in to a vet because of a small lump that was growing near the corner of her inner eye. I called our vet's office and was told that she was swamped for the next 48 hours...and we were on our way out of town later that afternoon to get to the cottage. So I phoned a different vet's office...one who practices more traditional veterinary medicine. It was a newly opened office, so I figured they'd have appointments still available. They did.<br />
<br />
We took Finn into the office, where a vet assistant ushered us into a room and asked about Finn's diet and activities, etc. I remember being a little surprised that the young assistant didn't go anywhere near Finn; in fact, she rather backed towards the wall of the room. I thought that was a little unusual, especially because Finn (and Charlie, who was up on the table keeping Finn company) was desperate to have the woman's attention. Finn is the dog who falls asleep on her back (with limbs spread eagle) when our usual vet is examining her, and who falls asleep when the groomers are trying to groom her; she is the most laid back, attention-loving, type-B personality dog. She audibly groans with pleasure when people are stroking her. And here this woman at the vet's office appeared almost scared of little Finn! I couldn't quite figure it out, but answered all of her questions.<br />
<br />
A minute or two after she left the room, our vet of the day came in to examine Finn. As he entered the room, he was pulling on rubber gloves and he then pulled a face mask over his nose and mouth. I had never seen that before in any vet's office, and so I asked him why he was wearing them. I imagined the worst: That Finn had some incurable and communicable disease that the assistant had been able to diagnose from her lofty position some feet away. I was rather anxious to hear the vet's answer.<br />
<br />
"I understand that you feed your dogs a raw food diet," the vet said.<br />
<br />
"Yes, that's right," I answered, puzzled about what that had to do with anything - unless it had a link to whatever was going on with her eye.<br />
<br />
"I'm not sure you understand the significance of this choice for yourself or for your children," he continued.<br />
<br />
I had no idea what he was talking about. Zero.<br />
<br />
"It's not <i>us</i> eating the raw food," I assured him, completely puzzled. "It's for the <i>dogs</i>."<br />
<br />
Well, the long and the short of it is that that vet was thoroughly and adamantly horrified by our choice to feed the dogs a raw food diet! Seriously. I mean, I learned when I was doing research into it before the dogs came home that some people still find a raw food diet controversial...because people might still think that it's better to feed their dogs grains and highly processed kibble instead instead of what dogs would eat naturally. And I get that - the raw food diet isn't for everyone or everyone's dogs. It doesn't bother me if people choose to feed their dogs a more traditional diet.<br />
<br />
But I'd never heard someone speaking so passionately and frighteningly about it! The vet went on (and on and on) about the dangers of the raw food diet, the mistake that it was, how we needed to be fearful of what was on our dogs' tongues because the bacteria might end up on us (hence his gloves and face mask, I guess), how we needed to purchase his particular form of kibble, offered right there in his office. On and on and on he went. He expressed "horror" that we'd been led to believe this was in our dogs' best interest. Despite my pointing out how shiny and soft their coats are, how much better Finn's allergies are on a raw food diet, how full of life they are, he couldn't hear it. He said that I should have informed the front desk immediately upon entering the office that the dogs were on a raw food diet so that they could all don appropriate hand and face gear! He told me that it was not a responsible decision to do this when I also had children to consider - apparently because I need to worry that my children will either eat out of the dogs' bowls, or because they plan to put their mouths inside the dogs' mouths. At one point, I let a small giggle out by accident - I was just so <i>amused</i> and <i>I can't believe this</i> about his die-hard belief in traditional veterinary practice. To not even <i>consider</i> an alternate opinion that is in the best interest of the dog was mind-boggling to me. And in the meantime, he terrified my kids, who were standing right there alongside their beloved dogs, suddenly looking at the dogs as if they might be monsters. In fact, it was because of a glance at the kids' faces that I finally and abruptly shut the vet down and indicated that we were perfectly fine with our choices and that we normally worked with a holistic vet who provided support for our choice. He shook his head, gingerly touched the sides of Finn's wiggly-happy head to take a brief glimpse at her eye, pronounced that she had (basically) an ingrown hair follicle there and said that he'd provide a little cream to help it out, failing which if it weren't better in a week he would anaesthetize her and surgically remove it. SURGICALLY REMOVE IT!<br />
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I was done! I paid my bill, took the expensive little tube of ointment (which I applied only once before thinking that, now knowing what it was, I could help move along just by rubbing a little shea butter on it and massaging it a few times throughout the day) and we family and dogs left the office. Two days later, the bump near Finn's eye was almost non-existent...and four days later, it was gone.<br />
<br />
I totally get why some people may not choose a raw food diet for their dogs. It's more expensive, for one thing; and it's a little more work than dumping kibble into a bowl (though we also have balanced dehydrated raw food for dumping purposes!). But to assume that it's a <i>dangerous</i> option, when you're a trained and experienced vet, is shocking to me. Ridiculous. I will not be entering that building again...after all, I'd hate to contaminate the people there!<br />
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<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-9710439366017106062017-10-09T22:01:00.001-05:002017-10-09T22:06:02.250-05:00Whew! The Winter's Menu Plans Are Done!At the cottage this summer, as I was thinking through the coming school year, I was reminded how (often overwhelmingly) busy last winter was. I knew that I needed to do some things differently this year in order to feel like I was preserving my sanity.<br />
<br />
I came up with a few good ideas:<br />
* We said 'no' to some of the activities that the kids wanted to do. Although we could technically fit more activities into our days/weeks than we currently are, the kids are needing more time on academics now than they have needed in the past...and it's hard to fit it all in when we're constantly out and about. So we said no to a few things...and, to my surprise, none of the kids seemed to mind.<br />
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* Geoff will be doing all Math homework with the kids this year. The kids each have 60-90 private minutes with a math tutor each week, and Geoff offered to complete homework with them during the week between tutoring sessions. That felt like a significant load off of my shoulders. :)<br />
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* On Thursdays, Seth and Lizzie will be spending the days as they did last year - at a small Christian school for children new to Canada. The school offers a day for homeschoolers on Thursdays and my younger two love those days! <i>Unlike</i> last year, Geoff will be the one picking the two kids up at the end of their Thursdays, and taking them both to Lizzie's evening dance class; he'll wait there for an hour, then bring the kids home. Because Matthew does not attend this day program, he and I will have most of a day, and part of an evening at home together! We are making it a combination kind of day: We do school work for part of the day; watch something on Netflix together; cook something together; read out loud; and kinda hang out together. So far these have been restful and relaxed days that we've both loved.<br />
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Then I got to thinking about something else that makes life more complex/full every week: Meal Planning!<br />
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I hate meal planning and grocery list preparation! Really hate it. But it's a necessary evil for a lot of moms with young children at home. And what I hate even more than meal planning is the 4:00pm panic about what to make for supper that night and wondering what I have in the pantry that's fast and easy and relatively healthy. I imagine many of you can relate! 😏 For years, I've been in the habit of weekly meal planning, but it's still quite a chore to do every week - I easily spend an hour or two every week just sorting through my pantry and freezer, and coming up with a plan for the week and the accompanying grocery list.<br />
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I decided to do something about it, and what I landed on was making a <i>six-week rotating meal plan</i> for the course of the winter. And this is what I did over the course of several evenings at the cottage in August. I also ended up preparing grocery lists for each of the six weeks, to remove another obstacle from life's craziness...I even included a list (on the grocery lists) of the spices I need for the coming week, so that I can quickly go through my spice drawers and see what I've got and what I need.<br />
<br />
It was a surprising amount of work to complete the menu plans and grocery lists:<br />
* I tried to include lots of variety in my plans.<br />
* I planned right down to the snacks.<br />
* I included recipes for each item in the file folder I developed for each week.<br />
* I tried to ensure that if I needed 3 cups of spinach for a recipe, I would then incorporate another recipe later that week to use up the remaining 3 cups of spinach in the container - so as to minimize waste.<br />
* I also tried to plan based on the amount of time I would have on a given day to prepare meals.<br />
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In the end, Sunday evenings generally became beef nights; Mondays are usually fish night; Tuesdays are mostly slow cooker days; and Wednesdays are usually some sort of chicken. The remaining dinners are mostly leftovers, with a back-up plan or two in place in case we don't have enough leftovers.<br />
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It was well worth the effort. I am now five weeks into my menu plans and, although some adjustments still need to be made to a couple of them, they've generally worked extremely well. And my favourite part has been the already-complete grocery list that comes with each week's menu plan. I included on my grocery list <i>every</i> <i>item</i> that my week's plan calls for (for example, <i>all</i> recipe ingredients, even if I generally carry them in my pantry/freezer). Thus, the only food-planning task of my week is to take that complete grocery list and cross off the items I already have in my pantry/freezer!! It's awesome!!<br />
<br />
It's been helpful in another way: We are part of an organic food co-op, and we order food through our co-op every second Thursday. With grocery lists in hand for the coming weeks, I can easily order food through my co-op online, and then supplement as needed with Costco and supermarket lists...and, of course, the Costco and supermarket lists are already ready to go so if I order something through the co-op, I just cross it off the other grocery lists!<br />
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I've already been asked by several friends for copies of my files/plans. I'm happy to do that, but it's harder than it looks. Each person will likely change one, two, or many things on the menu plan to cater towards their family's likes/dislikes, budgets, and so on. The challenge is that any change to the menu plan means that the accompanying grocery list also needs changing - removing any items (and recipe ingredients) that need to be removed; and then adding any items that need to be added to reflect the changed menu plan. Really, it's likely better/easier just to customize one's own.<br />
<br />
Thus, unfortunately, the menu plans and grocery lists are naturally proprietary/custom things:<br />
* For example, on Monday afternoons, I usually put together a nicer/bigger/funner snack for the kids and me, because they've just come home from swimming lessons (which means they're extra hungry) and because that is one of the time frames of the week when I do a fair bit of out loud reading...so we nibble at things while I read and we generally have a great time with this on Monday afternoons. Also, our dinner is usually a little later on Monday evenings, so I'm using a bigger/funner snack to stretch out the time a little before the kids eat dinner.<br />
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* Another example is Tuesday afternoons, when the kids and I are with our homeschool Learning Centre; we share a potluck snack with the other seven families on those afternoons...for about 25 people. I often prepare a larger snack for this purpose.<br />
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* Yet another example is Friday mornings. We usually have a little more time in our schedule on Friday mornings, which allows us time to make a nicer breakfast. Often those are the mornings I'll make waffles or pancakes or french toast. I always make extras of these meals, because everyone prepares their own breakfasts on weekends, and I like to have options available to any of us who would like to use Friday morning leftovers.<br />
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Just these three examples might demonstrate why my menu plans will not work for most other families. What <i>may</i> work, however, is to use my menu plans as the basis for <i>ideas</i> for your own. And to this end, I've let a number of people take a look through my files, for ideas or recipes that they like. After all, we moms need to band together as much as possible to help each other out!<br />
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I find that if I can carve out two hours' time on Saturdays, I can get a lot of food prep done for the week, and it makes my week <i>so</i> much easier. This past Saturday, for example, I: Made a pot of salmon chowder; made a pot of beef goulash; chopped veggies for the week's other meals; made a pan of granola bars for the freezer; cooked up some bacon for the week (homemade meat lovers' pizza on Tuesday, to go along with a movie night; and BLT sandwiches for a lunch); etc. I will not be spending a lot of time on food prep this week, despite having a delicious menu plan ready to go!<br />
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Anyway, I felt rather proud of myself for getting this job done, and I've had a month already to enjoy the fruits of that labour. Meals never looked so easy to me!<br />
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Here are a few pictures that might help understand what I've done:<br />
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Each week has its own file folder.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg39dULH5FvWOSxIp-d6OoplrRm5y_jsJATYYrxGTMd85i11dOdKOZDauG6VNinGpS3vATC4W44Nwp0u1gFFDfb7o2YiJ2VfM_i4YMF3Mv_ltnl62KTKXbOGASgxR9uQ3DdR_d_UwmUxAIl/s1600/IMG_6394.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg39dULH5FvWOSxIp-d6OoplrRm5y_jsJATYYrxGTMd85i11dOdKOZDauG6VNinGpS3vATC4W44Nwp0u1gFFDfb7o2YiJ2VfM_i4YMF3Mv_ltnl62KTKXbOGASgxR9uQ3DdR_d_UwmUxAIl/s640/IMG_6394.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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Each file folder has its own week's complete menu plan...below are three random examples. Now that the plans are pretty solid, I plan to laminate each menu plan; that way I can use a dry erase marker at the beginning of the week to make any changes to the plan that I need to. For example, it being thanksgiving this weekend, I needed to modify the plan a bit to incorporate the two turkey dinners we partook of. :)</div>
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In each file folder, behind the menu plan, is the grocery list of the week. I order first what I can from our organic food co-op, and cross off whatever I can from the lists below - which are the Costco and Supermarket lists. Then I quickly go through my pantry/freezer to see which items I already have at home; and I cross them off of these lists. Usually these lists are pared down by at least a third, given what I already have at home. This process usually takes me 10-12 minutes and I'm ready to walk out the door with my complete grocery list!!</div>
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(below)</div>
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In each week's file folder, I have <i>all</i> of the recipes that I need for that week. This was an awesome inclusion to my plan, because I never (like, <i>never</i>) have to scrounge around any more for the recipe I'm looking for...they're all right there in the file, in order...and I know that I have every ingredient I need!</div>
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<br />Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-16916477577049132832017-09-26T21:47:00.001-05:002017-09-26T21:47:30.783-05:00Home from the Cottage...and Back into Winter's GrindIt's been just over two weeks since we left the cottage and came home to start all of our fall/winter activities. We managed to delay our fall start by a couple of weeks, and spent that extra time at the cottage, but eventually it was clear that it was time to come home.<br />
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I didn't want to come home. Truthfully, I <i>still</i> don't want to be here. It feels strange to be home...and yet the cottage seems so far away now, too.<br />
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We had a terrific summer. A different kind of summer than we've ever experienced, but it was good for us all and I have no regrets. <br />
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This fall is a busy one for us, to be sure, but it's not going to be as busy as last year. I learned the hard way, last year, that we just can't take on too much. Particularly when things go awry (like when one's mom is in the hospital for many months, and like when one's child breaks an arm in two places), it's overwhelming to keep up with a schedule that has few breaks in it. So we've said no to a number of things, yes to a few things, and we'll-play-it-by-ear to other things. <br />
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Here's how our extra curriculars look this year:<br />
Mondays - piano lessons; swimming lessons; writing/reading workshop<br />
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Tuesdays - our homeschool Learning Centre, where we meet weekly with seven other homeschooling families for the purpose of both community and learning.<br />
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Wednesdays - Math tutoring for the younger two kids in the morning; Matthew and a buddy will exercise together for a couple of hours in the evening.<br />
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Thursdays - Seth and Lizzie spend a day of homeschool schooling at a local Christian school designed mostly for children new to Canada (here they participate in chapel, gym, choir, art, and a two-hour sports program/running club). Matthew is involved in Math tutoring for 90 minutes on Thursday mornings, and in the evening, Lizzie has jazz dance class.<br />
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Fridays - Matthew has art class all afternoon with an amazing local artist; in the evening, all three kids are involved in youth group at the church we've begun attending.<br />
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Saturdays - Matthew has wood turning workshops with a local wood turner.<br />
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When we're not engaged in these activities, we're doing more academic kinds of schooling than we've done before: Bible; Science, Math, History, Reading/Writing, Keyboarding (Matthew), and a bit of Geography.<br />
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It's a full life, but a good one. <br />
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Life for Matthew will be a little better this year, too, I think. For one thing, he's a night owl and yet I've always had him (attempt to be) up by about 7:00am. This year, I ask that he be downstairs for breakfast by 8:30 (dressed with face washed and teeth brushed), which means he can sleep until 8:15 or so. And on Thursdays, with Seth and Lizzie away all day, he'll have a chance to do some one-on-one work with me in a fairly quiet and peaceful house...he's really going to benefit from that.<br />
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All in all, I think we're in for a good year. I've given myself three weeks to settle into the new schedules and routines and we're half way through that time now. I think we're going to be ok.Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2528470033811673980.post-66752100333235993092017-09-14T22:35:00.001-05:002017-11-01T23:31:45.637-05:00Matthew...Wood Turner Wanna Be"Mom, I really don't want to grow up, but it's kinda strange that I just spent the evening drinking (and liking) black coffee and hanging out with a bunch of older men."<br />
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About six months ago, maybe more, Matthew began to express a serious interest in wood turning. This is <i>not</i>, I quickly discovered, something to be confused with wood <i>working</i>. Wood turning is the using of a lathe machine to shape wood...often into bowls, vases, and other assorted things. It might be fair to say that Matthew quickly became obsessed with the notion of wood turning - he began researching it, contemplating which lathe to purchase, watching endless (mind numbing) Youtube videos, and talking about it rather endlessly (did I mention mind numbing already?).<br />
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For a while, I viewed his obsession as merely the latest thing that he was interested in (we've gone through a lot of interests this past year alone)...but the months went by and his interest waned not the slightest. When, sometime in July when I was planning our homeschooling year, I asked him what he would like to learn about this winter, his first response was "wood turning." (Note: his second response was ice fishing...another real winner in my books...)<br />
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So...I scoured the internet, searching for places to start. Nowhere in the public schooling system could I find classes in wood turning, and the city had nothing to offer either. And then, eureka...I found it...the name of the provincial wood turners' association. Who knew??!!?? The website was a little out of date, but I contacted the person named on the site and was rather surprised to receive a response within 24 hours. He directed me to someone whom he thought might still teach classes out of his home.<br />
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Enter Herm. A lovely, somewhat-older gentleman who has been passionately turning wood for decades. Even better, he is still happy to teaches youngsters and was happy to meet with Matthew for the purpose of deciding whether or not there might be a fit.<br />
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They fit.<br />
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Geoff took Matthew to Herm's house that first evening and Matthew came home a few hours later in raptures. If he could have shouted from the roof the passion he felt about wood turning in that moment, he would have. The long and short of it is that, beginning in October, Matthew is going to take regular wood turning classes from Herm.<br />
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(Ice fishing is another story altogether.)<br />
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And so tonight, as the newest member of the Wood Turners' Association, Matthew (with Geoff as his side-kick) was invited to the season's opening night, where there would be lathe demonstrations, presentations by individuals who had completed projects over the summer and, of course, the business portion of the evening.<br />
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Matthew was apparently the only person under 50, and he was greeted by the other members heartily and with excitement. Apparently, during the business portion of the meeting (I am completely dumbfounded that Matthew sat through an hour long business meeting of Wood Turners!), Matthew was given a front row seat and he was referenced several times throughout. One gentleman later gave him a partially-turned wooden bowl and suggested that Matthew finish it before the next meeting.<br />
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In addition to that bowl, Matthew came home sporting a (worn, sawdust encrusted) leather wood-turning satchel, and some kind of tool that is now occupying part of the garage foot print, both of which were purchased from a fellow wood turner who'd brought his for-sale items from home. More importantly, Matthew came home sporting a large grin and great attitude.<br />
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I have no idea how long this passion will endure for my 13-year-old son, but we are homeschoolers, after all, and this is what we do: Help our children pursue their passions and gain life experience, with solid adult mentorship, sometimes in a way that is a little different than mainstream.<br />
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As I look into my future, I see kitchen cupboards full of bowls...lots and lots of wood turned bowls...<br />
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Hi from Ruth!http://www.blogger.com/profile/04696686601621200587noreply@blogger.com4