Category — Portland-centric

more of a series of general ramblings…

Ethan’s been doing a lot better with the last week of intentional time each day and a somewhat predictable schedule (I do morning meal, lessons, games in his room through lunch, Chris takes over for outdoor play and then a quiet time through til dinner and bedtime). I haven’t been able to work as much or as freely. I’m realizing that I really need to have a good segment of hours to devote each day because otherwise its almost not worth it to try to switch my brain from work mode to home mode and back again all day long for small segments. I am feeling the pressure of being the main earner as of now, which is difficult in that I want more time with family and to devote to the kids but then I also need more work in order to make ends meet. The Great Mom Dilemma of the last 50 years, eh? (Hooray, my friend Feminism. You have accomplished SO much, and yet still so little.)

This “schedule” (more or less) will be changing a bit in the Fall, as we will be spending our Tuesdays and Thursdays at Village Home for classes in: Tae Kwon Do; Sing, Play, Dance; Family Knitting; Organic Gardening; Lego Building Club; and a community services class.

Mondays will be spent much like today: A family walk to the library, hitting Peninsula Park’s beautiful rose garden and playground on the walk back, lunch and quiet time while I work through til dinner. Here are some pics of our family time and Ethan showing off his new “Summer Reading Program 2009″ t-shirt he got for completing however many days of reading. (Also sneaked in are some pics of his lesson time last week.)

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I’ve picked up my library copy of Living Simply with Children and so far I really like it. The tagline explains it: “A Voluntary Simplicity Guide for Moms, Dads, and Kids Who Want To Reclaim the Bliss of Childhood and the Joy of Parenting”. From fewer toys to TV to caring for the earth to being involved in the community to long-term goals to simplify, its all about enjoying your family more and not being on the “Work-Spend-Work treadmill”.

I have wanted that lifestyle since I can remember thinking of a lifestyle at all. If I need to work, I need it to be enjoyable and to not overstep on the boundaries of the rest of my life. When managers for the clock-in-clock-out work I held years and years ago would be upset about, say, me not coming in to fill a low shift, etc, I was always puzzled. And annoyed. I didn’t like, and still don’t, when anyone implies that I am wrong for under valuing XYZ that THEY think I should make a top priority. To them, this job/class/whatever was their life. To me, it was a means to make a little money so I could ENJOY the rest of my life. Having Ethan increased this feeling to the umpth degree. I am praying daily that Chris will be able to get some clients soon and that together we will see this vision of Family FIRST actualized while we integrate a part-time work-at-home lifestyle into our simple lives at home. There is just SO much life to live, so many places to see and things to do, so many conversations and laughs to be had, hobbies to start, — and foods to cook! I can’t imagine spending 6am – 6pm at the same job 5+ days a week and having only a few hours in the evening to give to myself or family.

Anyway, I DIGRESS.

I mentioned hobbies to start. Last night I had a bit of a knitting breakdown. Knitting: it’s amazing. I love it. But sometimes, I hate it. I hate when something simple takes forever but you’re too “in the zone” to put it down. I hate spending like 30 hours on a gift for someone, and seeing their face when you give it to them, like they have no idea how long it took or how much that time was worth, like it was just put into a machine in China somewhere and wa la, its on the shelf at Wal-mart and worth $7! I hate that knitting forces me to be sooooo patient with myself, with my hands, with the yarn and slippery needles.

It is all these things and more that I also love about knitting. Knitting forces contemplation and meditation. Gift giving. Patience. Stick-to-it-ness. I’ve been reading “Knitting for Good” and learning about the whole world of new things knitting can do, both internally (the rhythm, the meditation, the slower pace) and externally (knitting for charities and ill friends, etc).

Currently on the needles? The jungle animal baby mobile for logan, Fingerless gloves that will probably end up as a gift, a Celtic Cable patterned neck warmer that will also end up as a gift, a rocketship for Ethan, and a hat for Chris.

Should I stop talking about knitting? Yeah, I think so. But not before I show you the hat I made last week for Chris’ aunt: an orange hemp beret:

In other news, Chris aunt/uncle and two teen cousins are here for the week. We spent a good deal of our weekend with them out and about, doing the plethora of Portland markets, including Farmers, Artisan, and the Hawthorne Street Festival. We also went to the wedding reception of our sweet friends Aaron and Joelle, our fellow Lost devotees who have watched the seasons with us since moving to Portland 2 years ago and have (finally) now tied the knot! Woot!

I love the coast – so far any coast I see I’ll take. I might even settle for the bank of a nice big pond, LOL

I moved to the Pacific NW over 2 years ago from Florida, where I had grown up on the Florida gulf coast for the previous two decades (pretty much either right on the water or within ten minutes away). And yet only once have I made a very brief trip to the beach here in Oregon: since we sold our car so shortly after moving here, out of city trips were a luxury we just couldn’t afford.

Well, some incredibly awesome friends from church let us use their vehicle these passed 2 weeks in exchange for transporting them to the airport. I really hoped we could make it out of the city as a family in this small window of time that we had transportation, and today we headed off faster than you can say “Road Trip!” (Of course, with a baby and a 4 year old, you could say “road trip” about a million times and we’d still be fighting about who packed what, who changed the diaper last, who needs to go pee before we go, who brought water bottles, and who still needs to put their freakin’ shoes on. Needless to say, we did eventually leave the house.)

So we headed out (late) this morning on Hwy 30. First stop? Just over an hour away: Astoria, OR – famous in our household for being the filming location of the family favorite Goonies movie. I liked this city- a lot. It wasn’t touristy, it was like a little micro-Portland with local/organic cafes, independently owned book and toy stores, and an old, DIY eclectic kinda feel. We ate a scrumptious lunch, a delicious vegetarian fare at the Blue Scorcher (thanks for the recommendation, Lacey!) and then headed out to our next location: Seaside.

Seaside was entirely different, but still a lot of fun. We walked down Broadway street, which is kinda like Coney Island-ish, with its shaved ice stands and bumper cars and arcade and cheesy tourist shops. But there was lots to do there and I could definitely get why its a nice vacation spot. We spent a good deal of time dipping our feet in the water down at the beach, but it was starting to get chilly and we were getting ready for dinner, so after a brief Ethan melt-down at the showers, we hopped back into our loaned automobile and brisked off to Canon Beach.

Canon Beach might look different from a fresh start on a day, but since we were kinda “done” at this point, the three places we walked in to eat in the bustling, quaint city center were either too full or too expensive. We ended up splitting a small pizza between the three of us and heading home halfway satisfied with our experience of the third and final coastal destination.

Slideshow of pictures below, followed by some stills of my very favorite image captures from the day:

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What a day.

I used this recipe for the homemade chocolate zucchini cake (doubled for the castle bunt pan and the muffin pan). Instead of white sugar I soaked turbinado with the wet ingredients for 15 minutes before adding the dry ingredients. I used whole wheat pastry flour, oh and raw milk instead of buttermilk. I also omitted the pecans because I don’t think Ethan would like that, and it is his birthday cake, after all

The frosting is cream cheese – from the delicious Birth day Cake recipe here. I tripled the recipe listed for TONS of frosting, plus adding two ripe bananas.

Topped the cake and muffins with slices of fresh strawberries and a few blueberries. I then mixed honey with a can of pureed pineapple and drizzled it over everything.

Hungry yet?!?!

All aboard the Willamette Star…
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Big birthday planned for tomorrow, so stay tuned for more pics…

Learning via everyday life. We do it from the moment we are born, and hopefully continue to do it all our lives. No doubt children learn more new things each day, from how to move their bodies to learning a language to social interactions to facts/knowledge about whatever they find of interest.

I’ve been trying to be very mindful of Ethan’s learning each day, what things he learns about or asks about, what observations he makes on his own, in a very basic day at home with a work-at-home-mom.

This morning, as I mentioned, we Couch-2-5k’d it to the bank. He got 3 miles of bike riding in, plus he learned a bit about the bank and why we need to deposit money (okay, okay… I told him that it’s because the bank is a hungry machine that needs to eat our money or else we can’t use them to buy things… which is not entirely untrue!). He also stopped to make observations about the fact that there are a lot of Queen Anne’s Lace growing (we’ve been studying native wildflowers and collecting them to press) and other random things he saw on the ride.

At home, it was mostly a me-work, him-movie day, but even still, I noticed a ton of things he was learning. For example, he asked lots of questions about the movie Little Bear – about camping, making food, pretending to go to the moon, so on.

He learned to organize/load and start the dishwasher today too.

At one point today, he counted to twenty a few different times today, and when I asked him what he was counting, he informed me that he was picturing twenty kids and if they could fit in his shark tent. Do they?, I asked. Nope.

Later, he asked if I could take a break from work to show him a map of Oregon. (He’s been seeing the bumper stickers that have a shape of Oregon with a big green heart on it). We looked at Oregon and pointed out where Portland is, where the Willamette River is – which we will tour on the lunch cruise tomorrow for his birthday, and where the mountains are that we visited with Nana Betsy. Then he wanted to see a map of America, to see where Oregon fits in with Florida and so on. He was very puzzled that Florida was NOT in the sky (because, after all, you go UP in a plane to get there. I reminded him how the plane comes back DOWN to land when it arrives in Florida.)

Before bedtime, he’ll collect the eggs (actually, he just did this, and informed me that there was 1 in the coop and 2 already collected, and that 1 plus 2 equals 3!), feed the chickens, pick up his room, water play in the shower, read books (today we are reading about the months of the year and many concepts that are taught in Blueberries for Sal and its sequel, One Morning in Maine), color some pictures, write a thank you card to Misty for his pinwheel, brush his teeth (and no doubt have a fight about it and I’ll have to explain again that he will be going to his first dental visit in two weeks, etc) and sing and pray with mama and dada at bedtime.

Recap the day in early education terms: home ec, farm concepts, pet responsibility, arts and crafts, penmanship and early reading practice, music appreciation, natural sciences, botany, PE, cycling, banking (economics?), math concepts/counting, geology, hygiene, social sciences (what does a dentist do, etc), water manipulation/free play, spirituality, astronomy, so on and so forth.

When I stop to notice it, I’m often quite surprised by how much learning he does when I’m not even trying to formally teach anything at all. I can’t even begin to imagine how much more so when the gift of knowing how to read is at his disposal!

… P.S. Amy, if you are reading this- remind me to ask you about some movie Ben told Ethan about… apparently there’s a boy who eats his own poop. That was a lovely topic starter/lesson to discuss today LOL

Pics of Ethan and some homeschooling preschooling kids today at the OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) to watch “Bugs!” on the I-Max and play at the Science Playground. On the ride home, the shuttle driver let Ethan get up on his seat and open and shut the door! Truly the highlight of any 4 year old boys day

Enjoy…
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Our Kenton House brews a small feast of fermented numminess (my BFF’s way of saying “yummy-ness… or so I think…)

We normally brew two things regularly: Kombucha and Raw Milk Kefir. Briefly:

Kombucha:
What? A sparkling, fermented tea drink that is slightly vinegary, slightly sweet. Began being consumed in Asia about 2,000 years ago for health.
Why? “As the Kombucha culture digests the sugar it produces a range of organic acids like glucuronic acid, gluconic acid, lactic acid, acetic acid, butyric acid, malic acid and usnic acid; vitamins, particularly B vitamins and vitamin C; as well as amino acids, enzymes. And of course there are all the benefits of the probiotic microorganisms themselves. The Kombucha culture is a biochemical powerhouse in your kitchen.” Read more about these acids and beneficial organisms here.
How? Using a kombucha culture, or “scoby”, you BASICALLY add sweetened black tea and let it ferment for about a week in a warm place in the house before bottling the liquid and starting all over. There are all sorts of variations- sometimes we add juice at bottling time and ferment a bit longer on the counter. Other times, we might throw in herbs like chamomile and lavender and fruits like blueberries while it ferments, which not only makes it tastier, but adds some of the medicinal benefits of the herbs and teas (this particular recipe would be very calming, for instance.)

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Raw Milk Kefir
What? A fermented milk drink, we use whole, raw milk from a local family owned farm to ensure the highest quality nutrients in the milk with all the beneficial living organisms that would be otherwise disposed of in the homogenization/pasteurization process. You can use any milk, however. It produces a sour, fizzy, plain yogurt like drink useful for a variety of things, esp in our daily smoothies.
Why? Oh, if only my gut and lady parts could speak. Kefir contains a variety of beneficial organisms (remember the wave of “probiotic” reports and all the “contains 1,000 billion live probiotics” written on the outside of your yogurt in the past few years? Well, this stuff is the motherload. In addition to live probiotics, kefir has antimicrobial and antifungal properties, and contains a variety of vitamins and minerals including “calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, B2 and B12, vit K, A, D, as well as tryptophan, one of the essential amino acids abundant in kefir, is well known for its relaxing effect on the nervous system.” (Tryptophan; the “sleepy” element of turkey at Thanksgiving). Because of all these nutrients, kefir has been linked to improving a variety of things, such as “metabolic disorders, atherosclerosis, and allergies, tuberculosis, cancer, poor digestion, candidiasis [yeast infections and thrush, ladies!], osteoporosis, hypertension, HIV and heart disease.” Bonus: I am very lactose intolerant to store bought dairy (raw I am less sensitive to), but when I have a smoothie each day I am FREE of gas, bloating, and discomfort. FREE, I tell you. It’s amazing.
How? Easy peasy. Raw milk in clean container, add kefir grain. Stir with wooden spoon every so often, usually by 24 hours in warm place on counter (with covering of a clean cloth) your kefir is ready to be strained (using no metals) and restart the next batch. The kefir grain gets bigger and bigger and often breaks off “baby” kefir grains you can then pass on to lucky friends We use our strained kefir milk in a daily smoothie: about equal parts kefir with frozen organic fruit (berries, bananas, peaches, so on) and about 1 tbsp on raw honey per cup. Blend well, pour into tall cup and ENJOY!

Okay, moving forward:

so last week we offered up some of our extra raw milk kefir grains to a gal I met in my homeschooling group who traded us for 1/2 cup of her WATER kefir grains and a few bars of her homemade, natural soaps. Great score.

Lacey popped the little suckers into water with turbinado and raisins and wa-la, today we sipped from the cup of another one of natures healing tonic wonders. This stuff is quite mild and tasty, and can be made into a variety of sweet, fizzy soda drinks using fruit juices, etc. It has the same beneficial ingredients as the raw milk kefir, but less costly because you don’t have to use all your raw milk, lol.

I’ve been saying for awhile that my next venture into fermentation would be Mead. Mead is a sparkling “wine” type of drink, made with water, honey, and yeast. I was very interested in learning how to do this because with Mead you get the benefits of raw honey (oh man, they are VAST- but that’s another post. Google it, lol.) PLUS the fermentation methods nutrients, PLUS you get to sip your homemade wine and stop spending all your money on it! Sweet!

Well, come to find out while researching about water kefir recipes, you can make MEAD with kefir grains. So the insanity has truly begun. Adding some raw honey, cinnamon and cloves to warm water and kefir grains, I am now brewing homemade honey wine! It takes about two weeks total before you can sip it from a wine glass, but you can bet I’ll be back to report on this. I’m interested in how alcoholic this is though, lol.

Here is our cabinet of brews (kombucha not pictured since she rests on the top of the fridge for extra warmth): From left: raw milk kefir; spiced mead; water kefir with dates and apricots. (pictured uncovered but this is NOT how you leave them on your counter!)

(Additional Hint: Buying raw, local honey isn’t so bad if you order it through Azure Standard for about $23 a gallon- our household of 6-who-count-as-people go through about a gallon every 6 weeks – it is used for all of our daily sugar needs, from brews to baking to smoothies, what have you.)

Other homemade goodies I’ve concocted this week:

Homemade Coconut Milk Ice cream: This is my first go at homemade ice cream, and I didn’t even have an ice cream maker, lol.
2 cans of coconut milk, 1/4 cup or so of raw honey, 1 cup frozen raspberries from the farm! – in blender til creamy, place in freezer for a few hours in a shallow container and mix or re-blend every 30 minutes until mixture no longer gets “icy” but stays ice creamy. Keeps for about a week. I also made a cinnamon/cardamom version. Yum. (and not only guilt-free but NUTRITIOUS. Again, google the benefits of coconut milk… endless!)

Whipped Lavender Honey Butter: Our herbs hanging in the window are done, so I’ve used up some lavender and raw honey to whip together with organic, sweet cream butter in the food processor for a tasty addition to a slice of toast with tea in the morning

Good stuff.

This summer, my son began to exhibit the most common type of phobia- fear of spiders. Since I mentioned this on the blog, I’ve received some worried grandparent inquiries. (YES, my parents can read my blog – and it barely even cramps my style, heh?) So the long awaited post on Ethan and his relationship with arachnids follows:

Wiki says:

People with arachnophobia tend to feel uneasy in any area they believe could harbor spiders or that has visible signs of their presence, such as webs. If arachnophobics see a spider they may not enter the general vicinity until they have overcome the panic attack that is often associated with their phobia.

Early in the morning, he gets up to go tinkle and wrestles with himself over whether or not to enter the bathroom. “I need to pee REALLY BAD — but I think there are spiders in there!”

Portland has spiders like SW Florida had cockroaches, and luckily the vast majority of common city spiders are meak and mild- and not poisonous. Especially in the warmer months, they tend to spin webs in even the tidiest of homes. When we went away to the mountains a few weeks ago, we left our rooms a HOT MESS and the spiders were happy campers to take up temporary residence in our piles of unfolded laundry. Upon returning, they scurried for their lives when all of a sudden activity and lights returned to our rooms. We’ve been battling with Ethan’s “fear” ever since.

Some of us, ahem-hubby-ahem, have tried to find a solution in pushing Ethan’s hand towards webs and going “ahhhh!… SEE- they don’t bite!” (MEN?!) Others of us, ahem-me-ahem, have tried to explore the fear and educate the phobic. All of us, ahem-imperfect-parents-ahem, are now trying to be on the same page for the sake of our child.

Lesson one: “mayhaps, my son, you should pick up the piles in your room?” (Mayhaps, myself, I should set the EXAMPLE in my OWN room?!) Some tidying up ensued.

Lesson two: Maybe we should send the critters a message? (This was all Ethan’s idea, including the little spider cross-out-ghostbusters-piece, though I later traced it in pen since the sign was barely visible in yellow crayon.)

Lesson three: Maybe some spiders are not scary, not dangerous, even BENEFICIAL? We learn all about daddy-long-legs (which he is CONVINCED means they are ALL daddies) and we even kept track of one that spun little webs in the corner of our bedroom. We’re letting him hang out with us, because he was trapping any other bugs that came into the room, so we’re pretty much down with having ONE gentle spider in the corner rather than 20 random and unknown bugs that like to sneak in on summer months.

Lesson three learned recently, when Ethan explains to me: “I used to be scared of ALL spiders, but I am not scared of certain spiders anymore. So that means I am learning.” (Mommy’s heart swells with pride.)

Lesson four: Could it be, just MAYBE, that spiders are also INTERESTING?! We find a few throughout the week and instead of playing Miss Muffet and being “frightened away”, we have a special glass jar for cupping them, studying them, and letting them go outside where they belong. This week, we’ll be joining the homeschool preschool group for a viewing of Bugs! at OMSI to further explore our insect kingdom friends.

Letting a baby Daddy Long Leg go outside. I’ve always told Ethan not to kill insects. “They are just trying to find their way home,” I explain.

I am reminded as I watch Ethan’s journey that things that are unknown are often scary to us, and the more we explore it, the greater our understanding of how the world works and what our place is in it. So thanks, kid

I think I was just as excited as Ethan to head out to the berry farm today. This particular farm is about 45 minutes away, has over a dozen varieties, and is a no spray/going organic farm. I’m not sure if the best part is that they have REAL toilets (as opposed to porto-johns!) or that all berries are…. drum roll please… $1.35/lb!!!
I don’t know about where you are, but organic berries run me anywhere from $3 – $6/ lb. at the grocery store, and I don’t even get the amazing experience of walking through the fields and selecting the perfect berries with my son. It was beautiful. I can’t wait to go back!

I took off early this morning with a gal who organizes the homeschool preschool meetups on Fridays and her 4 year old son, with Misty and her two kids following behind us. Ethan ended up getting car sick (my kids are SERIOUSLY not used to the car LOL) and we pulled over twice to clean up regurgitated banana. Yum! Once there, Ethan sucked down an italian soda and wayyyy toooooooo many berries while picking. We ended up with 12 pounds EASY – and if I had known that I could use one of their little red wagons to carry my buckets, I would have likely done a lot more than that!

Afterward we all went to a little Vietnamese sandwich shop where I had a tasty grilled chicken banquette sandwich for $2.95. How awesome is that?!

Upon returning home, Ethan made it all the way to the house, got out of the car, and barfed up berries all over the sidewalk. Yum again! Back inside he was promptly made some brown rice in chicken broth, which seems to have done the trick. He helped me sort through jars to store the Lavendar Marionberry Jam I made, while I rinsed and froze the rest of the berry assortment. Among the berries we picked were: traditional blackberries, “Cascade Delight” raspberries, blond raspberries called “aimes” I think, Marionberries, Tayberries (a delicious rasp/black hybrid), Loganberries, Boysenberries, and a few others I can’t remember. The blueberries weren’t quite ready, so we’ll be headed back out there in a week or so, you can bet on that!

Pictures below…

It’s on, baby.

Since posting will motivate me and hold me accountable, here goes:

My friend Amy and I (possibly Misty?!) have plans to follow the 9 week couch-to-5k program in order to run in the Race for the Cure 5k at the end of September.

YEEK!

I ran cross-country in a past life, but otherwise you’ll find I’m not the most athletic person in the world by any stretch of the imagination. BUT I’m excited to get started, maybe lose these 10 pounds of mid-section pregnancy fat, AND race for a good cause. Since I just found out this weekend that some one who, along with her husband, “discipled” Chris and I during our courtship 7 years ago just passed away from breast cancer /related (the stuff just seems to spread and spread) and left behind 4 beautiful young children, I will be thinking of her the whole time.

The Race for the Cure brochure

The Couch-to-5K Program

Wish me luck!