Why Routines?

Rhythm and Routine

~ a series of articles to support rhythm in the home
#2

Routines can be good for everyone. Good routines are beneficial to physical, psychological, and emotional  health. Most of all they're healthy for the whole family. Let's look at some of the benefits of routine:

For the Children

Routines provide great comfort and security to children of all ages and help ease anxiety because they provide the comfort of the familiar and of knowing what is coming next. Children know what to anticipate with routines, as the sequence of events remains the same. Daily life becomes predictable with meal routines and bedtime routines. This ability to know what comes next alleviates the anxiety of the unknown for many children. Routines help children form good habits and become competent and capable of caring for themselves, their clothing and their environment - your home! You get a helper! All this through small steps in forming good habits with routines.

For the Adults

Life with little children (and big children too) can throw our plans off kilter, very easily. Very small children live in a sort of time out of time, and our task is to slowly and gently bring them into the rhythm of day and night, of mealtime and playtime, of sleep time and time for experiencing warm, joyful loving relationships. These are the anchors in our days - eating and sleeping, playing and experiencing warm, loving, joyful and secure relationships. Routines help us do this, they give form to time. Routines help our days run more smoothly.

Routines give us more freedom and actually free up time. With the form of a routine comes freedom within the form. 

Routines make procrastination less likely. When activities have a specific time in the day to be done, they tend to get done. I know that when I have no boundaries around my time, it's easy to drift this way and that and easily become distracted from what I set out to do. Having a routine for the important activities in my day helps me stay on task. When I make it a habit to mentally organize dinner first thing in the morning, it is likely to get on the table on time and without rushing. When I faithfully start my day with a load of laundry, the wash pile doesn't build.

Routines help us be more clear in our intentions and control how the day will unfold. Now that may sound a little outrageous for people with small children because who knows how the day will go with little ones?! Yet routines help bring us back to center and bring form to day. 

One example might be a strong after lunch routine of a nap that helps everyone come back to center and re-energize for the rest of the day. A healthy bite to eat after the nap helps tide everyone over through dinner preparation until dinnertime. These little habits to have lunch followed by a story and the routine that comes with that, then a nap, then a bite to eat, these ways that were so natural to my mother and grandmother, have become conscious deeds that are carried with intention for my generation. We no longer have the group to carry us, we must figure it out for ourselves. It comes out of our free choice.

Routines help form good habits. Maybe you've always wanted to leave shoes by the door when you enter the house, and wish that everyone would hang up their coat. A coming into the house routine might be created with designating a place to put the shoes, and a place to hang coats and jackets. For the littles you might like to set a wooden peg hanger that is at just the right height for your child to reach. This way new habits are formed that can make your life easier, save the time you'd spend picking up shoes and jackets, make you happy, empower the children and make leaving the house flow more smoothly as well since everything will be in its place and easy to find.

Other benefits may include better sleep, healthier meals, a more relaxed mood in the home, more time to get out in the fresh air, more time to snuggle in with a story, time for tea, and a more effective use of time. Good routines help home life flow more smoothly. 

Here's a list of the benefits of routine, they:

Provide comfort and security
Ease anxiety
Give form to the day
Bring children into the rhythm of life
Build competence
Bring clarity to intentions
Help us to be present in the moment
Give us control over the flow of the day
Help the day flow more smoothly
Help us come back to center (feel grounded)
Re-energize us
Make time to get things done
Help us form good habits

Have I convinced you that routines are a good thing?

Read Article #1 Routine in the Waldorf Home:: What is it?  here
Read Article #3 We Can't Have One Without the Other here


                                                        Peace on Earth begins at Home. 

Set a Pretty Table

:: Clarity ~ Intention ~ Care ::

What is it?

Set a Pretty Table is 52 Weeks of Enthusiasm and Nourishment and Thoughtful Intention for Tending the Hearth you call Home

Within the very word Hearth, we find Heart and Art ~ (heart)h and he(art)h

H{e(art)}h 

Set A Pretty Table will inspire you through 52 weeks of tending the hearth, (heart)h, (he(art) with a simple, enthusiastic reflection, tip or suggestion for each week to support you to create an atmosphere in the home that reflects your values...

• Each Sunday you'll receive an inspiration, suggestion, tip or reflection for the week.
• We have a private meeting place to connect and share over the topic each week 

The messages encourage and inspire you to take simple steps to bring beauty and rhythm to your life in very simple ways. They will inspire you to look within, as well as to stretch yourself outward to try new things: to paint, draw, color, sing, model or become more aware of the natural rhythms surrounding you.

“The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.” 

~ Thomas Moore

Call it "Where the rubber meets the road," the way to put into practice what you hold dear. Simple. Slow. Satisfyingly. Finding beauty, truth and goodness in the art of the everyday.

Each week brings its own unique and distinct inspiration.

I invite you to join this community for the next 52 weeks.

I was inspired to create this community, by the notion that it is attention to the little things in life that count. That the little things matter the most. The Ordinary Arts.

That's why I am calling it Set a Pretty Table.

A table is a place where we come together to nourish ourselves.

To set a pretty table is to make an effort to bring rhythm, beauty and our love, manifest as attention, to the moment.

Each person's perspective of beauty is unique. It is limitless, full of possibility.

Beauty shows up in the small, simple touches, as well as the grandiose and passionate statements.

Beauty, and love, are everywhere.

This course is meant as an inspiration to bring it to the table.

Both literally and figuratively.

As individuals. As parents. As teachers. As caregivers. As grandparents. As hearth tenders. As heart tenders. As artists. As soulful beings. As human beings.

We focus on the ordinary arts.

When we approach our days with this in mind, we are creating mindfulness. It helps us to become more present in the moment.

If you've taken my eCourses before and found the reflections and questions for you helpful, and loved being part of a community, you'll love this course.

It's simple and slow paced yet packed full of depth and meaning.

It's a Simple, Slow and Savory approach to the whole year.

Join a community of hearth tenders and home makers to journey around the year together with 52 weeks of Set a Pretty Table.

Bring a Friend 

Because this is a brand new program, and a brand new year, and it can be fun to try new things with a friend, I am inviting new members to sign up with a friend, with a two for one enrollment opportunity. 

One person enrolls for $99 and sends me the name of the second person who is sharing the membership. This offer is on the table until January 15th.

 

:: Sign Up is Closed ::

Included with Membership for Year Round Members of Celebrate the Rhythm of Life 

Feeling Bad You Didn't Celebrate Santa Lucia?

If you didn't celebrate Santa Lucia today by rousing your family with a crown of flaming candles on your head,  singing songs and carrying a tray of warm coffee and Lucy buns to each family member still in bed, no worries.

It's okay.

You're okay.

You are good enough.

Plenty good enough.

It is a beautiful festival, and for those who celebrate it, wonderful!

For those who do not, it's okay.

In Waldorf schools, the festival of Santa Lucia is typically a celebration that is carried by the Second Grade Class, the grade when Waldorf students spend a good part of the year studying saints and sinners. (Saints and Sinners is a phrase I picked up from Eugene Schwartz of Essential Waldorf. Isn't it a perfect description of what the child is wrestling with at this age?)

The Second Grade Class, sometimes with the help of the class parents with the baking and the clothing adjustments, prepares the goods, learns the songs, appoints a student to serve as Santa Lucia and wear the crown of flaming candles, (for the intrepid, the more cautious use battery lit candles) and then, in the morning, the class sings and serves its way around the school. It's beautiful.

It's a festival that lends itself well to groups.

The kindergarten is sometimes visited, but not always.

It's a festival that meets the particular developmental age of the child.

It's a festival that is celebrated in specific parts of the world.

If you didn't celebrate it, don't worry.

You are good enough.

Plenty good enough.

The Period of Watchful Waiting

Thanksgiving came and went.

My thoughts have been with the water protectors in Standing Rock, standing strong to protect their sacred ground, their ancestors' burial sites, the water for their children, their land, their treaty rights, the water for everyone, the very well being of the earth. Watching the Native American people stand clear and strong. Standing for all of us. A time for healing and change. Urging the people and the leaders of the United States to find our identity as a nation, to clarify what this country stands for, and who it is about and act.

It's an unsettling time, and yet a time ripe with hope and potential. A little bit like transition when a woman is giving birth.

The first light of Advent is the light of stones, lights that live in seashells, in crystals and in bones.

Advent is a season in itself, a season of anticipation. The very word "Advent" has in its roots "ad" meaning towards + "venir" to come. Coming towards. Advent is a season of "coming towards." Of anticipation. Of quiet waiting.

It reminds me of my midwifery work in which the first trimester of pregnancy is known as The Period of Adjustment, the second trimester as The Period of Radiant Health and the third trimester as The Period of Watchful Waiting. These come from Helen Varney of Varney's Midwifery.

Advent is like the third trimester, we are in The Period of Watchful Waiting. A time of quiet anticipation. Waiting for what is to come. As the world is waiting, and praying, for  what will come at Oceti Sakowin. Women and healing work at Otceti Sakowin here, scroll down.

Watchful Waiting.

For Our Times

Working with a Verse

~ a type of inner work

Inner work is a wonderfully helpful, sometimes challenging "bonus" that comes with parenting, teaching and homeschooling.  We get to know ourselves by noticing who we are in challenging situations: how we respond or react, how we show up or disappear, how we reach out or retract, how we feel energized or drained, how we care for ourself in daily life.

Sometimes the awareness comes out of a situation, other times it comes out of focused attention and presence.

Inner wok can be defined as the work that we do on ourselves, of getting to know the self, our self. There are many types of inner work.

Lynn Jericho speaks of inner work in this Interview we did together, over on The Wonder of Childhood, in which she said, "Put some of your energy into knowing yourself and do this with intentional rhythm – make it a priority to have a weekly walk for self-reflection or a long soaking bath when you recollect on the moments of the week that were sweet. Self-knowledge is the beginning of inner freedom and the basis of inner love."

Inner work is an integral part of Waldorf parenting, homeschooling and teaching, and can take many different forms.

One type of inner work that is done in the Waldorf realm is to work with a verse. 

How to Work with a Verse?

Choose a verse or short text to use. Each day, set aside a few minutes in the morning, in the same place to contemplate your verse for a few minutes. You may want to read the verse aloud initially, and then come to know the verse by heart. I like to write out or print the verse on a slip of paper I can keep in a drawer or tape inside the kitchen cabinet.

Rudolf Steiner gave us many verses to work with including The Calendar of the Soul, a series of verses, one for each week of the year.

There has been a mood of excitement, hope and frustration throughout the year of primary campaigns, speeches and debates for the election of the president of the United States. Now there is so  much tension, anxiety, fear and uncertainty with the upcoming election day tomorrow. 

I try to remind myself to trust, that we are made for these times, yet it is still challenging. This verse  from Rudolf Steiner is one I turn to, that you might find strength in as well. His words feel as timely as ever...

For the Michael Age

If you'd like to print this, it's here.

::

Revolution, Independence and a Finger Play

The presidential primaries have sparked many a conversation around our dinner table over the past year, especially so, with our own Senator Bernie Sanders running as a candidate, rousing people and stirring up enthusiasm for the political process.

We've been watching the debates, following the caucuses and primaries, talking about what is working and what does not seem to be working with the government and in the world, what is important for the country, as well as who is best able to lead the country, and what is our responsibility in these times of uncertainty and change. 

There's the question of what is a patriot today. 

And there's Brexit, the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union. 

You know, basic dinner table conversation. 

Do you think that people in times past had such an acute awareness of change in the world? It feels like we are in a time of great intensity and rapid change on a grand scale, on so many levels.

Revolution, change and what one is willing to do to make the world a better place seems a very fitting topic for this Fourth of July weekend. 

We're not quite at the topic of the Age of Revolution on our homeschooling journey, although we're close to it, and that is evident in the conversations around here with a teenager and a twenty something.

For the little ones, I thought you might like this little finger play called Ten Little Firecrackers.  I recorded it for you.

~ begin by holding up ten fingers and placing one down with each count down, making gestures with the fingers to go along with the verse as in standing in a line, walking very straight...

IN JULY.

BY A. S. WEBBER.

10

Ten little fire crackers

Standing in a line,

One thought he’d light a match

Then——

There were nine.

9

Nine little fire crackers

Walking very straight,

One caught an engine spark

Then——

There were eight.

8

Eight little fire crackers

Trying to spell “LEAVEN,”

One went too near the gas,

Then——

There were seven.

7

Seven little fire crackers

Cutting up tricks,

One played with lighted punk

Then——

There were six.

 6                                                                                       6

Six little fire crackers

Glad they were alive,

One went to have a smoke

Then

There were five.

5

Five little fire crackers

Wishing there were more,

One went to find a friend

Then

There were four.

4

Four little fire crackers

Merry as could be,

One played upon the hearth

Then

There were three.

3

Three little fire crackers

Puzzled what to do,

One started the kitchen fire

Then

There were two.

2

Two little fire crackers

Looking for some fun,

One met a little boy

Then

There was one.

1

One little fire cracker

Sat down to cry,

’Tis such a risky thing

To live

In July."

How are things going around your dinner table this July?

Meal Plan Monday

April 4 - 10
 time for new themes

In my ideal world, I sketch out my meal plan on Wednesday when I give the fridge a quick clear out and wipe down. That gives me time to look in the pantry, go to the farmer’s market and have a sense of what I might like to cook for the following week.

The reality is that it’s now Monday morning, the start of a new week, and the first week of a new month. It’s not a big deal because I have a pretty strong rhythm of meal themes, a basic foundation food for each night of the week. Do we always eat those foods week after week? We don’t. Yet I have the basic ingredients, and  I know I can lean back into them if I need to, and at the same time, I have the freedom to cook something completely different if I want to.

I sit down and sketch out my meal plan for this week. Over here I talk about the Anchors of Our Day, with meals as a point in the day we can lean back into, everyday, an anchor that tethers us to a healthy home rhythm.

The changes in our diets have had me simmering over some new general theme for each days of the week. We have several different nutritional and dietary needs: gluten free, vegan and gluten and dairy free. We all began as whole food omnivores with an emphasis on S.O.L.E. food.

As this new path unfolds, it sometimes feels simple and easy to manage, other times it can feel overwhelming with planning and preparation. It does feel great from a health perspective, energizing and nourishing. To try and get a handle on our different and divergent dietary needs, I made a chart of our dietary needs to try and find more common threads, in which each of us feels nourished with one meal.

These past months have been a time of reflection for me with my meal themes. Monday’s Mexican with beans and rice as a base remains a favorite, cheese, sour cream and meat can be options to add or ignore. Tuesday Thai works well. Wednesday’s pasta is out, I’m not keen on using gluten substitutes, they are not so sound nutritionally, and then there’s the concern about rice with arsenic.

My meal themes need a change. This is what I’ve come up with:

:: Monday is Mexican

:: Tuesday is Thai or Stir fry

:: Wednesday is Slow Cooker or Children cook

:: Thursday is Indian or lentils or chickpeas

:: Friday is Salade Composé

:: Saturday is grill or baked beans in winter and or leftovers

:: Sunday is grill/roast/casserole

How do you do with meal planning?

We can inspire each other if you join me by linking below in the comments to a post with your meal plan. 

Carving Out a Healthy Family Rhythm

 notes on rhythm 

Rhythm can seem so strange and mysterious, yet be so simple when it is put into practice and experienced in daily life. 

Next to de-cluttering, rhythm is, perhaps, for many of us, the single most helpful practice for parenting, homemaking and homeschooling.

I call it a practice because it is. It’s an inner practice, a form of self discipline. Of becoming more aware. More sensitive. More conscious. Finding and maintaining a healthy home rhythm helps us to be present within our selves. We notice our breathing. We become more aware of our feelings. We can be in the moment. We can respond from the heart rather than react. It can be hard work, yet its rewards are large.

Benefits of a Healthy Home Rhythm

A healthy home rhythm helps us to respond from the heart rather than react to stressful and chaotic moments.

A healthy home rhythm is the secret to discipline. When we discipline ourselves to carve out and maintain a healthy home rhythm, our work gets done, our children know what to expect and they feel secure and calm. Life becomes predictable. The unknown is eliminated. Anxiety is reduced or eliminated. Our days run more smoothly.

A healthy home rhythm supports us by carrying us along on a challenging day. It makes grocery shopping and meal preparation easier. A good rhythm can make bedtime pleasant for all. It supports our children by carrying them along through transitions to what they are anticipating.

Rhythm is distinct from routine, in that it's all about flow, the ebb and the flow. To implement a healthy home rhythm, we consider the needs of the members of our family for quiet time and active time, for coming together and moving apart, for outside play and inside play, for rough housing and a quiet story. A dance of sorts.

Rhythm is about finding the point of balance in your days. The sweet spot between chaos and rigidity.

An Exercise for You

Begin to notice how your days feel. Are they rushed and hurried? Do you find yourself out of breath, or holding your breath. 

Begin by noticing and becoming aware of how you feel in the moment. Let that awareness guide you in carving out the flow of your day.