:: Meals Plans and Rhythm in the Home ::

Weekly Rhythm :: The Meal Plan

One simple way to help make the week flow with ease is the meal plan. The meal plan makes it easy to shop, plan and prepare meals. It also makes a great fall back during busy and stressful times. 

A meal plan can make all the difference in daily life. When I have a meal plan and use it, I don't have to think about what to make for dinner each day. I've already decided. I've gathered ingredients and been inspired by what I have on hand in drawing it up. Less worry and more time.

A meal plan means we eat healthier food. When I sketch it out, I look at the vegetables we have in our garden and from the farmers market. Our Minestrone at this time of year is entirely made of home grown and local farm vegetables: onions, garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes, cauliflower, tomatoes, broccoli and sweet peppers, rosemary, thyme and oregano. The last bits of basil from the garden garnish it.

The applesauce is made from the apples we just picked. The spicy greens are what's growing best in the cooler weather here. The epazote in the beans is from the garden. If you know of other uses for it, I'd love to know, I have two bushes of it, hanging on, in the garden.

One of the other, unexpected gifts of the meal plan, at least for me, is in reflecting on how much local food we are eating and identifying how to bring in more of it. It also helps me plan what to grow int he garden.

A meal plan is flexible too. If by Saturday, leftovers are too plentiful for our lunches, we'll eat them for dinner and out off the Shepard's Pie.

This week we are talking about meals and meal planning in my online eCourse for October, When Less is More :: 31 Days to Rhythm for a Calmer and More Peaceful home, also known as Rhythm Boot Camp. Click here for more.

If you use a meal plan and would like to share it, please do so in the comments below, or leave a link to your blog where you have posted it for others to see.

Celebrate the Rhythm of Life 

Harmonious Rhythms ::   Soulful Parenting with the 3C's :: Waldorf Homeschooling

Rhythm Boot Camp is Back!

When Less is More :: 31 Days to Rhythm Boot Camp

October 1st to October 31st
31 Days

You've been asking for another session of Rhythm Boot Camp and here it is… just in time to work with the rhythm of the year as autumn brings a drawing the earth's forces inward and we too experience a feeling of drawing inward. It's a good time of year to bring your focus inward to find ways to bring order and harmony to your days with children.

When Less is More :: 31 Days to Rhythm...
is a 31 day eCourse that provides a place where we can gather with a cup of tea during these cozy days of autumn, at this time in the year when we are naturally seeking order, turning inward in our thinking, and reflect on the rhythm, routine and reverence in our lives and homes.

We'll look at family values, the needs of children and adults, mealtimes, bedtimes, play, fresh air and the spaces of time in-between. We'll reflect on what can help each of us bring more rhythm and spaciousness to daily life. With simple and practical ideas and suggestions.

With this online course, I will take you by the hand for the 31 days of October and help you become more clear on your family values, more present in the moment, and able to implement daily rhythm into your life. After that you can go back into the eCourse over and over again for it will be up indefinitely.

The material in this session is fresh and new, it is not a copy of the last session.

The Schedule

Now :: Gathering and Greeting

Week 1 :: October 1 ~ What Matters Most

Week 2 :: October 8 - Step by Step

Week 3 :: October 15 - Deepen

Week 4 :: October 22  -Weave it together

We'll work out of the 3 R's of Waldorf education: Rhythm, Repetition and Reverence. We'll find beauty in the simple and the ordinary, as well as incorporate simple and practical creative and artistic endeavors that make daily life more meaningful and pleasant. And easier too!

We'll look at different approaches to rhythm. Some of us are night birds and some of us are up with the birds and some of us are both! We'll explore how to find renewal and renewed energy to meet our children where they are at each day.

We'll consider what may be getting in the way of your rhythm and how to move through that.

I am very excited about this eCourse because it is set up on a brand new private site that is lovely and easy to access and keep track of. Everything for the eCourse is there at the site.

Are you?

• Curious about rhythm, wondering how it compares to a schedule or routine?
• Wanting to bring more beauty and harmony into your life?
• Wishing you had more peaceful mealtimes?
• Seeking more meaningful bedtimes?
• Wanting to ease transitions?
• Wondering how breathing and rhythm are connected?
• Longing to feel more connected?
• Feeling drawn to a deeper awareness of nature's rhythms?
• Imagining a home that is more peaceful and harmonious?
• Tired of not knowing what comes next?

If so, then join our group of rhythm making mamas! (and papas too! )

::

31 Days to Rhythm Includes:

* 31 days of rhythm reminders

* 4 weeks of focused practical activities

*a wild, wise and wonderful community

*lots of enthusiastic support

::

::

Ready to Get Rhythm?

registration is closed

all new easy to access format

Celebrate the Rhythm of Life 

Harmonious Rhythms ::  Soulful Parenting :: Waldorf Homeschooling

Gratitude

 Day Two 

from this...

 to this...

Earth who give to us this food

Sun who make it ripe and good

Dear Earth, 

Dear Sun

By you we live

Our loving thanks to you we give

~ Christian Morgenstern

15 Days of Gratitude

 Day One 

As the days of November lose their golden glow and the last leaves dance from the trees, bare branches continue to reach up to the light, skeletal like. Perhaps it is the need for food, shelter and warmth, so necessary to survive the cold and snow that winter brings, that illuminates the abundance of the earth and goodness of its inhabitants, a need that draws people together to celebrate the harvest and give thanks for the abundance of life.

As this time of year is one of reflection on gratitude, I am challenging myself to post daily until the end of November something simple from daily life that arouses gratitude within me. Fifteen days of gratitude. I invite you to join me and leave a link with a note in the comments below.

“Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.”  ~ Maya Angelou

Putting it on the Table

When I was twenty-something, I lived in several different households in San Francisco with other young people. None of us had children. The households that are most vivid in my memory are the ones in which we shared meals, typically dinner and occasionally leisurely breakfasts on the weekends.

 In one household we shared shopping, cooking and cleaning responsibilities for the dinner meal among four or five of us. The housemates came and went but the rhythm of meal time and shopping remained pretty much the same.

Then I moved in with two guys and brought the shared meal time routine to that household. Well one housemate fled to England with his soon to be wife and the other endured. We formed a strong friendship and shared meals and conversation over a few years.

In another household we were vegetarian, or at least we all agreed to eat vegetarian at home. Each member of the household favored certain foods, one almost always cooked burdock root in some form  or another and added fresh basil to everything. Another could be relied upon for Indian food with basmati rice. We shopped at Rainbow Grocery and who ever took up the task to walk (or bike) to the store to do the shopping got to buy a shopper's treat and include its cost in the cost of groceries which we shared. One of my favorite shopper's treat was an oat cake, a dense chalky round oat delicacy with dried apricots, which I am still striving to replicate after all these years. Dense. Round. Chalky. Fruity.

Meals tended to be pretty simple and straightforward and everyone pitched in, in one way or another, with shopping, cooking, washing dishes and sweeping the floor. 

When my first child was born, I was living in our little nuclear family in Maine and I used to scramble to get dinner on the table on time for all of us to sit down and have a pleasant meal with conversation, before someone was too tired. I was on call for labor and birth at the time too. I guess I didn't know then how ambitious I was. You know what is said about hindsight...

I remember dinner taking what felt like all day to prepare, and struggling for hours with something as simple as burritos. The soaking of beans, cooking of beans and rice, grating cheese, slicing avocados. could take all day. My son spent a good deal of time on my back and often fed butter to the dog by the stick. Not long after, he began passing the dog wooden spoons to eat as well as the butter sticks. Butter and wooden spoons disappeared like never before!

I also recall the quick and easy moments, there were a few...coming home to toss together fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden with garlic and onions and tossing it over pasta, ready to go. Chicken pot pie bubbling from the oven or a steak on the grill with potatoes baked in cream and Emmentaler cheese with bits of garlic tucked in.

We moved to the islands when this first born and then only child of ours was one year old. On one island we lived on, our house was on a "mountain" in the center of the island and looked out over the sea. The moon rose right out my back kitchen door and the sun set right in front of my kitchen window. Hibiscus bushes and coconut trees were dotted around the yard. It was quite a view.

Whenever I'd begin to feel overwhelmed with the dinner process, with bickering or frustration, I'd step out the door and look at this view. At dinner time the sun was headed down and it was not unusual to see a green flash as the sun was going over the horizon.

Well, who could be frustrated for long when the challenges of getting dinner on the table were put in perspective?

Behind the house, I tended a kitchen garden that grew what were to become the staple ingredients during our time in the islands: lemongrass, basil, wild chili peppers and kabocha squash. The trees provided calamansi, mango, papaya and coconuts.

In October's Odyssey of Warmth, I'll include some of the curry recipes I learned to make in the islands, one from our housekeeper and one from a Thai gal who decided to share her recipes with the community when she left the island. These have endured and remained favorites through the years among our family and friends and at potlucks.

On the fridge, held by a magnet was the wheel of the year I had sketched out for myself. You can see it here. It has a focus on the energy, both inner and outer, at each turn of the year. It dawned on me that I could sketch out a meal plan too. It came of out habit and necessity. Those beans and rice Monday Mexican evenings became so easy to organize, especially if I soaked the beans and rice on Sunday and knew when I went shopping that every Monday, dinner would include beans and rice and whatever vegetables were in season.   

When we returned to New England after living in the South Pacific, Monday became the day we ate tropical foods, avocado, mango, papaya and pineapple. My friend Danielle inspired me to try 

Sunday's roast could turn into Monday's bone broth that would be available for snacks and sipping and form the base for Soup day.

And so, you see, it just rolled along.

When I started The Children's Garden, the food themes rolled over into lunch for the children, beans and rice on Monday with avocado and tropical fruit. Soup on Tuesday. It made it easy for our home rhythm and the Morning Garden rhythm to overlap. I knew what to buy when shopping without a list. I was free to add seasonal and local foods when they were ripe and in season. It helped me become more sensitive to the earth's rhythms as well, with blossom time for the apple trees and months later, the harvest with fresh hard Macintosh apples to eat and press, bake into pies and cook into applesauce. Summer brought fresh cucumbers from the garden and the herbs from three seasons we use in making our tea as well as spicing food.

Creating a meal plan rhythm also awoke in me a deep gratitude for the bounty of the earth and the renewal and transformation that comes in revisiting a season each year, each return brings new eyes.

I notice this too with mothering, with noticing the same child, yet a year later, a year older with the return of the birthday. I too have changed in that year.

Like any other aspect of rhythm, it needs tweaking on a regular basis. Sometimes it needs a big change, sometimes it needs an addition and at other times it needs a total re-haul. When I pay attention to our enthusiasm for meals and the changing availability of local foods, it tends to work really well.

As the wheel turns and leaves the warmth of summer behind, we now find warmth within. This month in the Celebrate the Rhythm of Life Program we'll explore warm meals, warm gestures and how we can kindle the warmth within as we move toward colder days and longer nights.

The turning of the wheel of the year is an inspiration to shift our meal planning toward local warming foods. Broths and stocks take on new meaning. Soups and stews edge out cold and raw salads. Curries and spices warm both tummy and heart as well the home.

In October we'll embark on an Odyssey of Warmth and take up Warmth of Head, Heart and Hands with four weeks of cooking lessons on both and stocks, soups and stews, curries and spices to warm the   body, heart and soul. Lynn Jericho will be a Guest Speaker and we'll have a Round Table Conversation on bringing warmth to the home.

Registration is now open and the class officially begins October 7th. In the meantime, we'll have Introductions and get to know our way around the materials and blog.

CLICK HERE FOR AN ODYSSEY OF WARMTH IN OCTOBER 

Halloween is Coming!

Halloween is coming, then we'll see

Faces in the windows smiling at me

Pumpkins on the door step shining bright

Oh, we'll have a good time on Halloween night!

Bobbing for red apples tis such fun.
Then we’ll come a-calling on the run
All dressed up in costumes such a sight
Oh, we'll have a good time on Halloween night!
Oh, we'll have a good time on Halloween night!

I think I told you last year that Halloween is and has always been one of my favorite holidays. My Mom tells great stories of Halloween from when she was a child during the depression, of mischief and pranks and a night that belonged to the children. I have fond memories of bundling up and going out with our wagon lined with an army blanket though the crisp fallen leaves in our neighborhood in the dark night in Maine.

We are busy preparing for Halloween, working on a spaceman costume. Over the years, the boys have been a gnome, pumpkin, a Continental Micronesia airplane, a lamb, a cowboy, Harry Potter, a wizard, a ghost, baker, prince, knight, Robin Hood, and a hippie.

Do you know about the story of the Sugar Sprite? It's one I have mixed feelings about. 

On one hand, the candy load can be enormous on Halloween. On the other, it's one day out of the year, it's fun for children to collect their candy, return home, dump out their treasure trove and sort through it and eat from it. Often there are trades to be made that require careful negotiation between the children. 

Allowing children to eat their fill on Halloween day is one way they can learn to set some limits for themselves, and learn to appreciate moderation if they over indulge. Limits can be set determined how many pieces may be eaten each day and when in the days following Halloween. 

The Sugar Sprite

Halloween is coming and parents often want to avoid the huge consumption of candy that comes with trick or treat. I heard this story many years ago, tried it out with my children and it fell flat. We'd had too many years of trick or treat without the Sugar Sprite behind us. 

I like that is has the potential to create a satisfying picture for the children and helps to manage the sugar load. The gesture of helping is one I appreciate too. For those who are seeking such a story, here it is:

As the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer and darker, the Old North Wind comes to visit and brings gusts of cold breezes. They blow, they blow.

The buzzing bees have gone to sleep, in their cozy warm hives.

Mother Earth has tucked the Flower Children into their beds, deep in the warm earth. They go to sleep in the ground and no longer make sweet pollen for the Sugar Sprite to eat.

Father Sun is snuggled up in the clouds as the days get colder and darker.

We put on our woolies, caps and warm sweaters, to keep ourselves warm and we cover the flower children and bulbs with layers of warm earth and mulch to keep them warm.

The Sugar Sprite is cold too. "Brrrr… how cold it is," she declares as she wraps her arms around herself to her her warm. She doesn't need warm caps, and woolies, and sweaters to keep her warm for she is warmed by the nectar from the blossoms and bees.

She needs sweet nectar and sugar to stay warm through the cold of winter.

The flower children who offer the pollen from their blossoms have gone to sleep, deep in the earth, and the bees who carry it from place to place have gone to sleep in their hives.

Oh dear, the Sugar Sprite has no sweet pollen to keep her warm. Hmnnm…. "whatever shall we do, I wonder."

"I've got it!, we can help the Sugar Sprite. We can share our Halloween candy with her.

At Halloween, our neighbors and friends give us lots of candy, far more candy than we need.

So when we return from trick or treating, we may sample some candy and put aside our very favorites.  The rest we can leave on the doorstep for the Sugar Sprite with this verse:

 Sugar Sprite, Queen tonight

 Need sugary treats for your heart's delight?

Come to my doorstep, candy awaits,

Linger not at the garden gate.

Sugary sweets to warm you well,

to help you weave your magic spell.

Winter days are coming soon,

Keep warm 'til next Halloween moon.

During the night, when the children are fast asleep, the friendly Sugar Sprite comes, takes the candy and leaves a simple gift of thanks. The Sugar Sprite knows what all children like, but sometimes the children write letters or make pictures for the sprite about a week before Halloween so she doesn’t get confused as you can imagine she has to visit a lot of children to collect enough sugar to keep her warm through the coming winter.

We're holding off on carving the pumpkins because the rain disintegrates them if it comes after we've carved them.

What are you doing for Halloween? Any fun costume ideas you'd like to share? Say hello and leave a link below to your Halloween activities. I love to hear from you.

Quieting and Excitement

It's been a week of quieting and excitement. It began on Sunday with a wrapping up of four weeks of Inner Advent work with Lynn Jericho's group. We've been looking at truth, beauty and goodness in our thinking, feeling and willing and laying it out on a mandala for the year. So much swirling in the mysterious in this past year and so much constellating for the new year. I love doing this work. This year's Inner Advent work was better than last for the group work deepens with time.

Monday we went to the Advent Spiral at the school. It was so beautiful. When I watch my children walk, I always feel tears well in my eyes, every time over the years. It was outdoors, in the dark of night, in the cold, dark of night yet warmth permeated from within. One of the songs that we sang is Now I Walk in Beauty which has been with me all week. Click here to hear it.

The next day was the last day here for a dear little fellow who has been in my program for three years, nearly since he was born, and is now moving on to be with the big kids. I've watched him grow and shared in the joys each new development brings with his lovely and loving family. He's been the little brother to my children. I'm going to miss him. Alot. And his mom and dad.

Now, on vacation, yet working on my new project. Moving towards Christmas. I cannot find the book Mary's Little Donkey this year and we are missing it hugely. We'll  cut down our tree today and let it rest overnight before we start decorating it tomorrow. Tomorrow evening we'll go to a service.

I keep worrying about Christmas morning, have I done enough?  How do we make the Twelve Days of Christmas the focus rather then Christmas morning? What about the anticipation? Santa is pretty regular here,  in what he brings, striped jammies from the elves, matching ones for the children, slippers if needed, a book and a game or toy. He fills the stockings with little treats, a new toothbrush. I make something for each child for Christmas Day. Yet there is so much energy rising, especially for my little one.

We've been singing Christmas songs, our favorites this year seem to be Good King Wenceslas, People Look East, Children Go Where I Send Thee, here for a humorous recording of it, The Old Man in the Woods. We're learning The Boar's Head Carol, all from Mary Thienes~Schnumann's The Christmas Star, here. Her books have really helped me over the years to sing more and especially now when I am at home and not in a school community on a daily basis to sing with others.

We'll be moving on to more songs about the Three Kings and Epiphany. I'm working on a Babouschka Circle this year for she is beloved by our family ever since my children were given the Tomie de Paolo books.

This week we baked gingerbread men. We'll be baking for others for Christmas week and we have a knitting and sewing gift project going on. My second grader is making potholders for gifts this year. I'd love to host a cookie exchange if I can pull it together. And I'd love to go caroling.

I am looking forward to another year of The Inner Christmas with Lynn Jericho. Lynn sends out an e-mail message each day with an inspiration to contemplate each night. I need to dig out my Inner Christmas Guide. I think it's with Mary's Little Donkey. I put it in a red binder last year with Christmas things.

This Inner Christmas is Lynn's gift to the world. It's free. The guide too. Click here to sign up and enjoy. I find that work with Lynn is so satisfying in such a gentle way. It helps me expand my view of things and helps me digest events of my life in a very nourishing way. It also inspires me to do new things and take risks. I am so grateful for this gift. Thanks Lynn!

A Very Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate!

Lisa

Kim John Payne

Kim John Payne spoke in City Hall last night. Today he is doing a workshop at the Waldorf School. What an engaging speaker he is! He described Cumulative Stress in children as a malaise akin to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He recommends four steps to take to reduce stress for children. Can you guess what one of them is? That's right, to bring Rhythm, Predictability and Boundaries to the child's life so the child feels secure in the world and has room for play, for boredom, for the great out breath. He discussed his research and how he found that this and the other three steps to foster simplicity (more on them after the workshop) foster brain growth and learning and eliminate so many of the hindrances for the "D" generation (A.D.D., A.D.H.D., O.C.D., O.D.D.)

I'm riding my bike there and that means mud.

Better be off in case I get stuck in the mud!

Rhythm

This word is used quite often with Waldorf education.

What is rhythm? What is the rhythm of life?

Rhythm is movement, flow, pattern, form, pulse, cadence. Rhythm is a place between polarities, that of being stuck and rigid on one end and that of flowing wildly in every direction without form or the ability to pull in, complete expansion at one end, contraction at the other.

Rhythm is the place of healthy movement between the poles. Like breathing, if we contract too much we are gasping and quickly exhausted; this can be very stressful with no out breath. If we are in one long out flow of breath for too long, we may not be able to rouse ourselves to action when necessary.

Children thrive in a place of healthy rhythm. Rhythm provides balance, ease, strength, reassurance and predictability, a feeling of safety and calm, much needed in this hectic world. To find the harmonious rhythm is a process in this busy life, a process of striving to find the rhythm that best serves children and family life.

The young child incorporates the rhythms of life into his or her very being by internalizing the experiences of the external world into his or her very being. The experience of harmonious rhythm that surrounds the child is taken in deeply by the child. A healthy relationship to rhythm nourishes the sense of balance, the feeling of calm and the ability to rouse to action and then withdraw and flow into the next activity. Rhythm helps form good habits. To find and provide a healthy rhythm is a form of discipline rooted in guidance through deeds not words.

Nature provides external rhythm with the cosmic flow, the natural rhythm of the movement of the planets and the stars , the rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon and the turning of the seasons.

Rhythm is also internal with the rhythm of the body which includes breathing, with inspiration and exhalation, the rhythm of the heartbeat, the pulse, the rhythm of the menstrual cycle and the rhythm of the unfolding soul.

Before birth, the fetus knows the rhythm of the mother's body, of her heartbeat and breathing, of her sleeping and waking, of her active time and quietude and of the light of night and day. The mother often knows her child's pattern of movement and sleep in utero.

The newborn child develops a rhythm of heartbeat and breathing, of eating and sleeping, of active observation, exploration, and movement, as well as quiet dreaminess. Rhythm that we provide for the infant includes breastfeeding, the sucking and mother's heartbeat provide strong rhythm and warmth, rocking, cradle and lullabies.

The toddler's rhythms expand from those of eating and sleeping and play to joining in activities of the household which might include the rhythm of the day, the week, the month and the year. Nursery rhymes, rhythmic songs, rhythmic ring games, finger plays and the telling of simple rhythmic stories are ways to bring rhythm to the toddler.

Activities of the daily rhythm include laundry: washing, drying, folding, putting away, meals: preparing, serving, enjoying and clearing , washing dishes, sweeping the floor, mopping the floor, bringing out the compost, feeding the turtle, rabbit, dog, cat or hens, making the beds, turning down the bed covers, taking a bath, hearing a story and going to sleep.

Weekly rhythm might include soup stock day, soup day, baking day, craft day, ironing day, shopping day, cleaning day, trash day and family day.

Seasonal rhythms for us in New England include the harvest, apple picking, applesauce, apple crisp and apple pie making, leaf raking, scarecrow building, pumpkin picking and carving, seed toasting, salve making from the garden's calendula and lavender, gingerbread men baking, snow shoveling, sledding, skiing, bird feeding, seed planting, garden tending, strawberry, raspberry and blueberry picking, preserving and cooking, pesto making, beach going, swimming, kayaking and harvesting the garden through out summer and fall. The food we eat reflects the season with warm comforting soups, stews and roasts in winter, baby greens, peas, lettuce and rhubarb in spring, summer's bounty of fresh vegetables and herbs and the harvest of fruits, grain and vegetables in autumn.

Festivals that we celebrate include Michaelmas, Halloween, All Soul's Day, Martinmas Lantern Walk, Thanksgiving, St, Nicholas Day, Advent and the Spiral Garden , Christmas, New Year's Eve, Epiphany, Valentines, Mardi Gras, Easter and the summer solstice. The stories, songs, finger plays, food and decorations, often from nature, return each year like the seasons, the familiar forces of nature take hold of the earth in a breathing sort of way, a predicable assuring way with a past we can look to and a future to anticipate, with balance and ease.

And so dear reader this ends my first real post. I will continue with more specific elements of how we celebrate the year in future posts, as well as make some musings and meanderings as to the why.