Funny squirrelings

Mama Squirrel (reading from Exploring Creation With Astronomy): "That's Venus. Of course, you will know that it's not a star at all. It's a burning hot planet with lava and heat-trapping clouds made of sulfuric acid swirling madly around it."

Young Squirrel: "Sounds like Daddy's sinuses."

I'll have one of those real ones, please

You reap what you sow--sometimes beyond. I have great sympathy for big brother Tim, whose preschool sister Miss M. is horning in on his LOTR books.

A couple of weeks ago I culled some of our bookshelves and put the extras and giveaways in a box. I asked the Squirrelings to have a look through it and please make sure I wasn't giving away anything that they really wanted.

Crayons went through it and came up with a pile up to her knees of books she wanted. Not anything I'd read to her or that she'd read herself--these were books that, for some reason or other, she Just Wanted to Keep. The list included an extra copy of Kidnapped ("I've been dying to read that book!"), a 3-volume Ladybird set about great artists ("Mama, look, it has Van Gogh in it!"), Plays Children Love, Modern Plays, Pauline Johnson's poems, Maryanne Caswell's memoir Pioneer Girl, Hind's Feet on High Places, and a book of Hanukkah riddles. And about three others that I convinced her we did already have other copies of. And a book of fairy tales (do you know how many other books of fairy tales we have?).

Most of those books were nothing I'd pick for a six-year-old. Truth is, other than the fairy tales and maybe the artists, I doubt she'll even find them interesting for a long time yet. But I can see it happening already: the bug is there. This will be a girl who asks for her own box at library sales.

The busiest rodent around

Crayons was reading a poem out loud and said that it was by "Annie Mouse."

Hm?

Oh....boy, that Annie Mouse has written a lot of poems! (I'll let you figure that one out.)

That would be a Big Bang

A Treehouse slip of the tongue:

"Here, Grandpa, you can take these nuts home and open them with a firecracker."

More Frugal Thoughts

Continued from this post.

OK...some more thoughts on dealing with frugality burnout.

1. This is something that has worked for me: keep a notebook page or some other sort of journal of small blessings, especially of the financial/found stuff/little answered prayers kind. Then you can go back over it when you're feeling discouraged, and remember when you had that hunk of leftover whatever in the fridge and a recipe for using it up dropped in your lap; or the time you were out of milk and the neighbour sent you home with some because she bought the wrong kind (and she didn't even know you were out of milk); or the time you made a great frugal meal and EVERYBODY liked it. Or the times you have taken your taxes to the accountant and he tells you right out how amazed he is at how you guys manage so well (because he sees a whole lot more people who make a whole lot more money and are in a whole lot more mess). (Score bonus points if he asks YOU for frugal tips).

All of the above (except for the bonus points) are things that have happened to us.

And then you can keep a list of Big Blessings as well, just to keep things in perspective.

2. Hand in hand with #1: Think of things that you made from scraps or found frugally that are every bit as nice as something you could have bought if you'd had more cash to blow. It's related to what Amy Dacyczyn calls the "wow factor." Somebody mentioned having this crazy urge to go out and spend a whole lot of money on a very expensive restaurant meal, just because they've said "no" to it for so long. OK, it's a fun idea. Bring on the lobster thermidor. But when you think about it, is the "wow factor" you get from that meal (or something similar) enough times bigger and better that it justifies the cost?

I'm thinking here of Meredith's adorable play areas for her little girl (here, scroll down for photo, and here). Simple and classy. Would a $129.99 version look better or provide more play value? Doubtful.

I'm thinking of the Christmas presents we made for each other this year (and if you read here much, you know that not every Christmas is a handcrafty one for us). Things hit the mark here this year because they were well thought out--even the joke things like this little thrift shop version of Mr. Fixit. [photo] I know The Apprentice likes to read in bed, so I made her a neckroll pillow (made from yardsaled yarn and long-leftover stuffing). Ponytails knows Mr. Fixit likes a hot drink in the morning, so she made Daddy's Morning Drink Kit.

And I'm thinking of our somewhat-improvised Christmas dinner.

And you know what...I'm thinking of some of Mr. Fixit's working-full-time, well-paid female co-workers, who admit every year that they find Christmas more of a bother than anything else, because they're so stressed and rushed trying to get everything done, wrapped, cooked and sent. Would I trade places with them FOR THE BETTER INCOME? Not a one. Now get this straight before you misread that: I appreciate and thank every female person who has waitressed for us, cashiered for us, delivered our mail, and otherwise helped us this past holiday season, not to mention those who were "only" volunteering their time. (I don't go so far as to thank the telemarketers, though.) I am not dissing any mom with kids who has to work, loves to work, or who has seriously thought this through and knows that what she's doing is right even if she's not crazy about her job. Nobody needs to be dumped on because she has chosen to work outside the home, any more than we need to be dumped on because we have managed/chosen not to.

I am simply saying: at this point, if you offered me a good job with the result that we "didn't have to be frugal anymore," I'd probably turn it down. I'd rather be frugal, and occasionally pout over somebody else's shoe closet, than lose what we have gained by knowing our own limits and working within them.

And that's all. (Except for the photo, and I promise it's worth coming back for.)

I'll take that as a compliment...I think

"Watching the Stooges is funnier when you're watching too, Mom."

(Mr. Fixit bought us a stack of Three Stooges videos for a Christmas present.)

Sea songs with Crayons

"Put him in a walnut until he's sober, put him in a walnut until he's sober..."

Our morning

This snowless week, and a fairly dry although not very pretty Saturday without any dance lessons or pressing need for (regular) groceries (as in canned goods), led to a Squirrel family Saturday morning adventure. We don't often go right downtown, and almost never with all five of us together; Mama Squirrel sometimes goes down on the bus, alone or with one Squirreling in tow, and Mr. Fixit occasionally has something to do down there; but we rarely have a reason to go as a family.

So off we set, after a brief stop at the library, to check out the new-and-improved downtown farmer's market which someone had assured us was fairly deserted on Saturdays, not like That Other Market where all the tourists go. We couldn't even get parked nearby! Maybe our informant goes there at 7 in the morning or something. So we settled for Plan B. We parked the car on another downtown street, took everybody for some fair-trade coffee, juice, and baking at the "hemp café," and then headed for a German deli that Mr. Fixit couldn't believe was still downtown (he used to go there with his own squirrel mama). Mama Squirrel was very happy because her favourite thrift shop was a few doors away from that, and she, Ponytails and Crayons looked around in the thrift shop while The Apprentice and Mr. Fixit went and bought buns and Meat Loaf (that's a cold cut) and Swiss cheese and a couple of other things in the deli. Mama Squirrel picked up half a dozen books (including a copy of Miss Suzy--oh, the reminiscences), a Steve Green Christmas tape, and a sweatshirt for Crayons, paying the astronomical total of $3.35. (It's about the only thrift shop she knows of these days where everything isn't $5 and up per item. Or something like that.)

So we didn't get to the market, but we did have some fun. The Squirrelings got to ooh and ah over all the handmade stuff for sale in the café. The Apprentice got to see the inside of a hock shop (they went in there after the deli). (NB: not to pawn anything, just to look around!) Crayons bought a cute little cocker spaniel for 20 cents of her very own money. And there wasn't any ice to slip on. (Next week, of course, we'll probably be snowed under again.)

Favourite things at school this week

Crayons: I liked The Pond People. I liked how it's sort of short and nice.

Ponytails: I liked doing Benjamin West, and Calculadder, and School Zone. Benjamin West is a very good painter. Happy weekend! I liked Geography too. The wheel was invented in Iraq, and Abraham was in Iraq, and Jonah, and Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abenego. (Also known as Rack, Shack and Benny.)

Crayons' Language Worksheets

Sometimes I make up worksheets like this for Crayons so that she can work independently while I'm reading with Ponytails. This is what I wrote for this morning; it's based on Snowshoe Thompson, by Nancy Smiler Levinson. (I leave spaces between things so she can write answers.)

------------------------------------------------
Read pages 14 to 21.

Copy this on your lined paper:

“I am making skis to deliver the mail,” he said.

Here are the chopping words from page 18: Whack! Thwack! Can you think of any other good words that sound like chopping?

How about hammering?

How about a grilled cheese sandwich sizzling in a non-stick frying pan?

You make up one of your own….

Where is Norway? (Look on the kitchen map. Ask for help if you need it.) Is it close to the north or the south? What do you think the weather must be like there?

Do you know what snowshoes are? Ask for help looking for a picture of them. Draw a picture of somebody wearing snowshoes.

Our ancient history timeline reappears

Mostly for Canadians (sorry!): Last year when Ponytails was doing ancient history, I mentioned the British Museum ancient history book/timeline that we used, and some people wanted to know where to get one. The every-month's-different bookstore we got it from, Hampstead House Books in Toronto, is offering it in this month's catalogue, for anyone who'd like a copy. (You can order it online.) I don't get paid to say that--just wanted to let you know.

Books? Or school?

I read something today that my friend the DHM posted: a snip from an old book that talked about teachers--even way back when--being of kind of a different mindset from yer average "readin' family." It made me think of some notes I had written a couple of years ago for a talk on CM. I'm pasting some of what I wrote then as a kind of followup and general agreement that this disconnect between schools/teachers and learning from books was (and is) both peculiar and very sad.

(I had been talking first about Charlotte Mason's enthusiasm for getting children outside, and wanted to use that as an analogy for her thoughts on books...)

Charlotte Mason felt that children often weren't getting exposed to a lot of ideas, either, if they had limited access to books or if they were being taught just to recite information and do the most basic kind of reading; to her that was like being shut up in another kind of room. At one point she wrote that education was like opening a door, or many doors, and she might have had that image in mind when she wrote that. (Doors can lead out as well as in!) She said that the goal of education was establishing and continuing as many of those natural relationships (with things and thoughts) as possible; so the mark of an educated person was that he would find life itself to be endlessly interesting. There's a story that Charlotte Mason asked one of her new teaching students why she had come to the college, and the young lady said that she had come there to learn to teach. Charlotte Mason said sternly, "My dear, you have come here to learn to live." I always thought that was an awfully arrogant thing of her to say, but I think I'm finally starting to appreciate what it means.

Unfortunately this kind of thinking was pretty much eclipsed during the 20th century by demands for passing more exams and preparing more workers, as well as a lot of other 20th century influences. But in 1987, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay wrote a book called For the Children's Sake, which reintroduced parents to Charlotte Mason's methods and philosophy. At about the same time, Karen Andreola got her books reprinted, and CM methods started to gain some interest among North American homeschoolers. Most of us reading these books about ten years ago felt like we were largely on our own, wading through all this Victorian prose and trying to get a picture of an education that was a lot different from what we remembered from school. One of my favourite illustrations from For the Children's Sake is a question that we're to ask ourselves as homeschooling teachers, Sunday School teachers, school principals, or whatever our teaching role is: if Albert Einstein got to sit in on science class with our sixth graders, would he be interested in what they're doing or doze off? How about if St. Paul could sit in on a kindergarten Bible lesson? Or Shakespeare sat in on eighth grade English? Is it possible even to imagine the kind of lessons that could hold their interest?

One of the keys to that would be who's doing most of the talking in the class, and another would be where the information is coming from. Charlotte Mason believed that children were able to deal with real knowledge, the great and noble ideas found in living books, without the teacher having to filter out the information for them first, or predigest it for the children and then make a sort of little mental nourishment pill for them out of what was left. She thought that teachers usually did way too much talking, lecturing, and questioning, and children not enough thinking and talking; and that schools provided way too little reading material (she complained about too little being spent on good books, and too much being spent on fancy manipulatives, models and other things that seemed to do a lot of the children's thinking for them. Sound familiar?). The kind of talking she wanted the children to do wasn't only discussion of what they had read or the teacher had read to them; she also wanted them to narrate back what they heard--not word for word, but in as much detail as possible. Then after that they could discuss some of the big ideas and questions in what was read--including asking their own questions. And that was Charlotte Mason's idea of a worthwhile class, and one that maybe even Einstein or Shakespeare would have wanted to stay awake for.

If you love books...I mean, really really love books...

This is the kind of book review you will not want to miss. (Charles Foran's Globe and Mail Books review of CULTURAL AMNESIA: Notes in the Margin of My Time, by Clive James)

I finally gave in (Chocolate Truffle Pie)

Way back when (actually it was Christmas of 2000), Kraft sent around a recipe flier with a recipe for Chocolate Truffle Pie. 2022 Updated Link

I saved it but never got around to making it, mostly because it calls for ten squares of semi-sweet chocolate. In fact, I resented those ten squares of chocolate so much that I wrote an article for an e-newsletter pointing out that you could get about as much wow-factor out of a slow-cooker chocolate dessert that only required a few spoonfuls of cocoa. Much more economical and better for you.

But this Christmas I didn't bake much with chocolate. We didn't make chocolate crescents. We didn't even make Mr. Fixit's favourite chocolate fingers. That was mostly because both of those recipes call for ground hazelnuts, and I had already blown the baking budget on other things. (Mr. Fixit decided he liked the double gingers best this year anyway, and he's asked for another batch when I can get the preserved ginger for them.)

So we hadn't overloaded on chocolate, and I did have some whipping cream, and it was Epiphany...and I gave in and made it.

Ratings? It was very easy to make. Everybody seemed to like it...it was a lot like very fudgy brownies...because after all, it's almost all chocolate. I think Chocolate Tofu Pie has a richer chocolate taste in some ways (and a full recipe of that has about as much chocolate in it as this pie); and the Apprentice's Cocoa Ricotta Cream has that very sinfully-good chocolate-paste texture if what you're looking for is just pure, over-the-top chocolate. But overall it's a good recipe to know about...especially if you use real whipped cream on top and not that Whipped Stuff that the website recommends.

Since we were talking about Mitford

Or I was, anyway...Circle of Quiet has a post about Patches of Godlight and some of "Father Tim's" favourite quotations.

Year of the Red Ribbon

What's in your hand...this year it was a spool of lovely red ribbon that we found at a rummage sale in the summer, and two spools of wide white lace. We used them both to tie up packages...tied bows with the red ribbon on the dining room mirror...decorated just about everything except ourselves with it.

And then the Apprentice topped every other use for it by hot-gluing it into a Barbie dress (the two dresses were her gift to Crayons). Nice, yes?

The blue print dress and the other parts of the ribbon dress are made from silk neckties. The Apprentice learned how to make those a few years ago from a library book, and she came up with some gorgeous designer duds. (All cutting and hot-gluing, closures made from sticky-back Velcro.)

(Photo credit: Ponytails)

The little clothespin kits that grew

Or, if you give a mom a Ziploc...

To read the rest of this post, come on over here and I'll whisper the rest while the Squirrelings are busy gluing.

Lemon Poppy Seed Shortbread

Birdie was asking for shortbread recipes, and that reminded me that I've never posted our recipe for Lemon Poppy Seed Shortbread. This is one that came from Canadian Living Magazine (Dec 1/92) and we make some every year; it freezes well.

[2008 Update: I baked an 8-inch square pan of this and, for the first time ever, had it turn out underdone; when I cut the pan into squares, the bottoms of the pieces were very damp. I remedied it as best I could by turning the squares upside down on a cookie sheet and baking them a little while longer at 275 degrees; they're not perfect but at least I didn't have to dump the whole batch. So--a reminder to give the pans as long as they seem to need, even if they're turning a bit brown--better that than underdone.]

Lemon Poppy Seed Shortbread

"This recipe can be baked as invidiual cookies or in a square pan." My note: I doubled the recipe this year and baked it in a large pan, cutting it afterwards.

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)
2 tbsp. poppy seeds
2 tbsp. grated lemon rind
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 to 2 tbsp. granulated sugar for sprinkling (or as desired)

In bowl, cream together butter and icing sugar until fluffy; stir in poppy seeds and lemon rind. Gradually blend in flour. Gather dough into ball; chill for 30 minutes if sticky.

If you're rolling and cutting them: On lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness; cut into 2-inch rounds and place on ungreased baking sheets.

If you're baking them in a pan: Press dough into 8- or 9-inch square pan; prick surface all over with fork. My note: I always find a fork really massacres the top of the bars, so I don't do that anymore; but I do prick the surface gently with a toothpick. Sprinkle with a little sugar if you like.

Bake in 300 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes for cookies, or about 35 minutes for square pan, or until set and very faintly browned. Let cookies cool on rack, or let large square cool in the pan before cutting into bars.

Shortbread can be stored in an airtight containers for up to 5 days or frozen for up to a month. Makes about 40 cookies or 24 bars.

Grace

I finished Shepherds Abiding. It didn't matter that it was the eighth in the series and that I didn't know all the characters...the story was exactly what I needed this week.

I've been thinking a lot about things and people that I miss (especially around the holidays), things that have changed, things I'm unhappy about (yes, there are some even though I don't blog about them), the fact that the living room won't stay cleaned (it's a living room), and the general imperfection that always seems to interfere and mess up the perfect life I always thought I was somehow entitled to.

Shepherds Abiding is full of imagery of things imperfect, broken, less than ideal. One-winged angels, families with missing siblings, lost letters, and, central to it all, an antique Nativity set that Father Tim is restoring as a Christmas present for his wife.

In a nice touch of irony, as Father Tim is consulting Botticelli paintings to choose the perfect colours for angels' robes, the ailing and rather simple-minded old man down the street is also making a present for his own wife: a wooden tray for her jewelery, with handles swiped from the kitchen cabinets. Both gifts are welcomed and loved.

The book is about restoring, repairing, finding what has been lost, and reconciling the past and the present. And even about extending grace from unexpected quarters: another couple sit "in their twin recliners" in front of a fake fireplace that "featured a forty-watt bulb that flowed through a revolving sheet of red cellophane." The wife opens a gift from a neighbour and recognizes something that she herself donated to a rummage sale "a hundred years ago."

"And to think I gave her a two-layer marmalade [cake]" [she said.]

"Th' poor woman has a gimp leg, Esther, which don't leave much room for shoppin'. Besides, why did you put it in th' Bane an' Blessin'? It looks perfectly good to me."

"Well, yes," said Esther, examining it more carefully. "After I put it in, I wished I hadn't."

"See?" said her husband, hammering down on a couple of cashews. "What goes around comes around."

It's about finding peace, mystery and wonder at Christmas in whatever place in the story you happen to be...understanding that God is allowing you to be a part of it all...whether your life is about Renaissance angels, or recliners, or somewhere in between.

It's about allowing some living room.

A matter of vocabulary

"He went to the coat rack by the back door and put on his fleece jacket, zipped it up, and popped a toboggan on his head."--Jan Karon, Shepherds Abiding

What on earth, I thought. Visions of Mr. Canoehead?

OK, no, obviously that must mean something different in North Carolina.

From FreeDictionary.com:

Noun 1. toboggan cap - a close-fitting woolen cap; often has a tapering tail with a tassel
ski cap, stocking cap

Oh--a toque!

Gotcha.